E. N. Anderson, Deborah Pearsall, Eugene Hunn, Nancy Turner (editors) - Ethnobiology -John Wiley & Sons (2011)

Ethnobiology
Ethnobiology
Edited by
E. N. Anderson
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside, California
D. Pearsall
Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri, Columbia
E. Hunn
Department of Anthropology, University of Washington
N. Turner
School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria
Copyright # 2011 by Wiley-Blackwell. All rights reserved
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Published simultaneously in Canada
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Ethnobiology / Edited by E. Anderson, Deborah Pearsall, Eugene Hunn, Nancy Turner.
p. cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-470-54785-4 (pbk.)
1. Ethnobiology. I. Anderson, Eugene N. (Eugene Newton), 1941– , editor of compilation. II. Pearsall, Deborah M.,
1950–, editor of compilation. III. Hunn, Eugene S., editor of compilation. IV. Turner, Nancy J., 1947– , editor of
compilation. V. Ford, Richard I. (Richard Irving). History of ethnobiology.
GN476.7.E745 2011
578.60 3—dc22
2010042296
Printed in the United States of America
oBook ISBN: 9781118015872
ePDF ISBN: 9781118015858
ePub ISBN: 9781118015865
10 9
8 7
6 5
4 3 2
1
Contents
List of Contributors
vii
Acknowledgments
ix
1. Ethnobiology: Overview of a
Growing Field
2. History of Ethnobiology
3. Ethics in Ethnobiology: History,
International Law and Policy,
and Contemporary Issues
4. From Researcher to Partner:
Ethical Challenges and Issues Facing
the Ethnobiological Researcher
1
51
6. Ethnozoology
83
9. Ethnobotany: The Study of
People – Plant Relationships
11. Reconstructing Past Life-Ways
with Plants II: Human –
Environment and Human –
Human Interactions
173
12. History and Current Trends
of Ethnobiological Research
in Europe
189
13. Ethnomycology: Fungi and
Mushrooms in Cultural
Entanglements
213
14. Ethnoecological Approaches
to Integrating Theory and
Method in Ethnomedical
Research
231
15. Assessments of Indigenous
Peoples’ Traditional Food and
Nutrition Systems
249
16. Ethnoecology and Landscapes
267
17. Traditional Resource and
Environmental Management
285
18. Ethnobiology and Agroecology
305
19. Linguistic Ethnobiology
319
27
65
8. Ethnobiology as a Bridge between
Science and Ethics: An Applied
Paleozoological Perspective
149
15
5. The World According to Is’a:
Combining Empiricism and
Spiritual Understanding in
Indigenous Ways of Knowing
7. Ethnobiology, Historical Ecology,
the Archaeofaunal Record, and
Interpreting Human Landscapes
10. Reconstructing Past Life-Ways
with Plants I: Subsistence and
Other Daily Needs
97
115
133
v
vi
Contents
20. Cognitive Studies in Ethnobiology:
What Can We Learn About the Mind
as Well as Human Environmental
Interaction?
335
21. The Symbolic Uses of Plants
351
22. Learning Ethnobiology: Creating
Knowledge and Skills about the
Living World
371
Index
389
List of Contributors
Karen Adams, PhD, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, Cortez, CO
E. N. Anderson, PhD, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside, CA
Kelly Bannister, MSc, PhD, Director, POLIS Project on Ecological Governance, and
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Human and Social Development, University of
Victoria, BC
Andrew Barker, MS, Applied Geography, Department of Biology, University of North
Texas
Cecil Brown, PhD, Department of Anthropology, University of Northern Illinois
Luı́s Manuel Mendonça de Carvalho, PhD, Botanical Museum-Instituto Politecnico de Beja
Iain Davidson-Hunt, PhD, Natural Resources Institute, University of Manitoba
Harvey Eshbaugh, PhD, Department of Botany, Miami University
Nina Etkin, PhD, Department of Anthropology, University of Hawaii
Richard I. Ford, PhD, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan
Catherine Fowler, PhD, Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada-Reno
Michael Gilmore, PhD, Integrative Studies, New Century College, George Mason
University
Preston Hardison, BA, Tulalip Tribes of Washington, Tulalip, WA
Christine Hastorf, PhD, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
Eugene Hunn, PhD, Department of Anthropology, University of Washington
Leslie Main Johnson, PhD, Dept of Anthropology, Athabaska University
Harriet Kuhnlein, PhD, School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition, McGill University, and
Founding Director, Center for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment
Dana Lepofsky, PhD, Department of Anthropology, Simon Fraser University
Łukasz Łuczaj, Wild Garden, Pietrusza Wola, Wojaszówka, Poland
Letitia McCune, PhD, unaffiliated
Heather McMillen, PhD, People and Plants International, Bristol, VT
Justin Nolan, PhD, Department of Anthropology, University of Arkansas
Manuel Pardo-de-Santayana, Senior Lecturer, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain
Deborah Pearsall, PhD, Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri, Columbia
Andrea Pieroni, University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo/Bra, Italy
Ray Pierotti, PhD, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Global Indigenous Studies,
University of Kansas
Charles Randklev, PhD Candidate, Biological Sciences, University of North Texas
Caissa Revilla-Minaya
Norbert Ross, PhD, Department of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University
vii
viii
List of Contributors
Susan Smith, PhD, Bilby Research Center, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff,
Arizona
Peter Stahl, PhD, Department of Anthropology, State University of New York, Binghamton
Ingvar Svanberg, PhD, Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala
University, Sweden
Tamara Ticktin, PhD, Department of Botany, University of Hawai’i-Manoa
Nancy Turner, PhD, School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria
Steve Wolverton, PhD (Anthropology), PhD (Environmental Science), Department of
Anthropology, University of North Texas
Sveta Yamin-Pasternak, PhD, Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska-Fairbanks
Rebecca Zarger, PhD, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida
Acknowledgments
We wish to acknowledge the individuals, many of them members of Indigenous and local
communities, who gave so much of their time and energy to the research embodied
in this volume, and especially to those whose knowledge is detailed in this volume. To
these individuals and groups this volume is dedicated. We also thank the universities and
other institutions and granting agencies that supported this research. We are very grateful
to Ms. Anna Ehler and the staff at Wiley-Blackwell Publishers for all their dedicated
work on the production of this volume.
ix
Chapter
1
Ethnobiology: Overview of a
Growing Field
E. N. ANDERSON
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside, CA
DEFINITION OF A FIELD
1
AN INTERDISCIPLINARY FIELD
2
LOCAL BIOLOGY AS SCIENCE
3
ETHNOBIOLOGY SPREADS OUT
6
ETHNOBIOLOGY GOES INTERNATIONAL
8
“TEK” AND ITS SORROWS
8
MOVING TOWARD MORE LOCAL PARTICIPATION
9
INTERFACING WITH POLITICAL ECOLOGY
10
ETHNOBIOLOGY AS FUTURE
11
A NOTE ON USAGE
11
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
12
REFERENCES
12
God put the fever in Europe and the quinine in America in order to teach us the solidarity that should prevail
among all the peoples of the earth.
—Bolivian folk botanist (quoted Whitaker 1954, p. 58)
DEFINITION OF A FIELD
Ethnobiology is the study of the biological knowledge of particular ethnic groups—cultural
knowledge about plants and animals and their interrelationships. This textbook documents
in summary form the progress and current status of ethnobiology. Ethnobiology remains a
small, compact, and rather specialized field, developing from earlier work in ethnobotany
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
1
2
Chapter 1 Ethnobiology: Overview of a Growing Field
and ethnozoology (Ford 2001, 2011; Hunn 2007). However, it covers a broad range
of approaches, from strictly cultural and linguistic studies to strictly biological ones.
Toward the former end are studies that focus on semantics: vocabulary, linguistic concepts,
meaning and symbol, and art and religion. In the middle zone, where anthropology and
biology fuse, are studies of how people actually think about their use and management of
plants: ethnomedicine, food production and consumption, and ethnoecology. Further
toward biology, but still using anthropological approaches, are the archaeological fields of
archaeozoology and archaeobotany, in which we reconstruct past lifeways from biotic
data. Studies of natural products chemistry, field agronomy, genetics, and crop evolution
verge on purely botanical approaches, and as such are not included in the present book.
In this volume the field is divided into archaeological and ethnographic researches, and
within that by major biological units: plants, animals, fungi, and aquatic life-forms. Special
topics include food and foodways (a research area with a vast and often specialized literature), landscape, and traditional resource management. Since many chapters deal primarily
with hunting-gathering peoples, a chapter on particular problems of agricultural studies has
been added. Very important, indeed basic to our entire project, are chapters on the history of
the field and on ethics.
AN INTERDISCIPLINARY FIELD
These various studies blend imperceptibly into their related (or parent) fields. Economic
botany, once largely confined to prospecting for new crops and medicines, has moved
close to ethnobotany. The “archaeo” fields have close ties with archaeology. Linguistic
anthropologists link studies of native categories to linguistic and semantic theories. Major
contributions to our knowledge of how people think about nonhuman lives have been
made by anthropologists like Claude Lévi-Strauss (e.g., 1962), psychologists like Douglas
Medin (Ross, 2011), and social thinkers like Bruno Latour (2004, 2005). Conversely, ethnoscience has contributed important understandings to linguistics and communication studies
(Sanga and Ortalli 2003). Cognitivists draw on this work for studies of human cognition
(e.g., Kronenfeld 1996).
Many students of traditional knowledge do not now call themselves ethnobiologists,
although they usually use ethnobiological techniques. They have often gotten them from
H. Russell Bernard’s text Research Methods in Anthropology (2006) or similar general
works; ethnobiological methods have gone mainstream.
Ethnobiological knowledge is far too important to ignore. It is vitally important in the
traditional cultures of the Indigenous and rural societies of the world, and these societies do
not want to lose it. In many areas Indigenous people have now taken a leading role in recording, saving, and using this knowledge. Traditional knowledge is emerging as important,
even necessary, for managing key resources and ecosystems. Ethnobiology continues to
be a source for knowledge about medicines, crops, agricultural techniques, conservation
and management, and much more.
Much of this knowledge is traditional, that is, learned long ago and passed on with
varying degrees of faithfulness for at least two or three generations. However, ethnobiological knowledge can change rapidly. Every tradition had a beginning (cf. Hobsbawm and
Ranger 1983), and was itself a new creation in its time. Ecosystems change, new plants and
animals arrive, and people learn new ways of thinking; ethnobiological systems change
accordingly, and are typically flexible and dynamic. Field-workers have observed new
knowledge being incorporated into systems around the world.
Local Biology as Science
3
Ethnobiology has usually been concerned with small-scale, local, and Indigenous
peoples. “Indigenous” originally meant “native to the place where they live”, as opposed
to recent immigrants. Now, however, it has acquired a political meaning, never officially
defined but generally accepted. (See, e.g., the United Nations in their Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples, final version adopted in 2007, in which the definition is
implicit but not explicit: http://www.cbc.ca/news/pdf/UN_declaration.pdf.) This restricts
the term to colonized minorities, such as the Native peoples of the New World and Australia.
It has become problematic in countries such as China, dominated by majorities that are
Indigenous by the old standard and in which the minorities are not officially considered
to be “colonized”. Such minorities are always referred to as “Indigenous” in the literature,
however, and are treated as such by the United Nations. Much more problematic are
Creole groups like those of Louisiana and the Caribbean. They have a rich ethnobiological
tradition (Brussell 1997; Quinlan 2004). They developed where they now live, had no prior
history, and often have a continuity reaching back hundreds of years. They are often minorities and are sometimes subjected to discrimination. They tend to arise from immigrant
communities, and they remain hard to classify. Ethnobiologists have never restricted their
studies to “Indigenous” groups (by any definition), but the question of indigeneity becomes
serious in dealing with intellectual property rights and other ethical issues.
Some have contested the use of terms like “ethno-”, “folk”, and “traditional” for local
knowledge, holding that such terms are pejorative. I find this attitude deplorable; the correct
procedure should be to insist on the value of folk creations and traditional ideas and practices. Folk, ethnic, and traditional music, art, dance, drama, narrative, and food have certainly
won full appreciation and acceptance from every sensitive observer. Folk knowledge
deserves the same respect. Claiming that “folk”, “ethno-”, and “traditional” are pejorative
terms is unacceptable snobbery.
LOCAL BIOLOGY AS SCIENCE
The extent to which local traditions are considered “science” depends on the definition of
science used. The Latin word scientia covered cognitive knowledge in general, but certainly
focused on knowledge of the wide outside world. The Latin historia naturalis more specifically covered the nonhuman environment, but could include humans in their relationship
with nature. Both terms were brought into English fairly early. Other languages had similar
words, not equivalent to modern “science” but comparable to scientia. The Chinese, for
instance, had a rich and complex language for talking about knowledge of the “myriad
things”, and had a thoroughly logical and scientifically analytic tradition (Harbsmeier
1998) including such things as case – control experiments as early as the second century
BC (Anderson 1988). India and the Middle East had ancient and well established scientific
traditions, in constant touch with and greatly inspired by the Greeks (see, e.g., Nasr 1976).
Recently, arguments for viewing traditional Mesoamerican knowledge as science have been
adduced very persuasively by Roberto Gonzalez (2001; Anderson 2000).
The broad consonance between folk and scientific systems around the world is devastating to the view that science is purely a cultural or social construction. People everywhere
focus on inferred biological relationships, and see more or less the same (obvious) ones.
Brent Berlin (1992) and Scott Atran (1990) pointed to striking similarities in cross-cultural
naming as proof that humans have a natural tendency to see and classify the world in a particular way—among other things, inferring natural kinds (see also Hunn and Brown, 2011).
Roy Ellen has criticized this view in a number of publications (notably Ellen 1993), but his
4
Chapter 1 Ethnobiology: Overview of a Growing Field
critique stands more in the line of qualification than of refutation. “Bird” remains a universal
concept even though cultures may differ on whether bats are birds or not. (The vast majority
lumps them as birds; the Germanic world is quite unusual in having long grouped them
with furry creatures, as zoologists do—German fledermaus, middle English reremouse,
both meaning “flying mouse”.) The fact that some cultures class mushrooms with plants,
some (correctly!) with animals (Lampman 2008), and some as totally separate (YaminPasternak, 2011) is, again, less interesting than the fact that almost everybody recognizes
them as a category.
On the other hand, the real differences between cultures (Ellen 1993) and the strong
influence of utilitarian reality on systems (Hunn 1982, 2011) shows that science, whether
folk or contemporary, is indeed a cultural construction. The point is that it is constructed
on the basis of continual interaction with an external biological reality, which must be accurately apprehended to allow survival in society.
Modern laboratory science has diverged somewhat from traditional classifications
(as they have from one another). Thus Carol Kaesuk Yoon (2009) sees a “clash” because
genetics has now showed us that birds and dinosaurs are closer than lizards and dinosaurs,
and for that matter humans and carp are closer than carp and sharks. Indeed, this somewhat
problematizes the classic life-form categories “bird” and “fish”. However, traditional taxonomies may be more accurate than European science. The Yucatec Maya, for instance, lump
branchtip-nesting orioles (three species known to them) as yuyum and palm-crown-nesting
ones (another three species) as jonxa’anil (literally, “palm dwellers”). Genetic research has
just confirmed that these are two separate clades within the genus Icterus. The Sahaptin of
Washington State correctly distinguished two plants that botanists had failed to separate
(Hunn and Brown, 2011).
“Science”, in the broad sense that includes these traditions, means knowledge of the
natural world that is not only more or less accurate but that is predictive, defined by certain
key postulates, and able to incorporate new knowledge. Gonzalez points out that the postulates need not always be true; the Zapotec he studied believe in the Earth God and deduce
much from this. More to the point, the Zapotec share with all the Old World traditions
a belief in “hot” and “cold” qualities that go beyond temperature to include many phenomena. This belief lasted in European scientific thought until about the end of the nineteenth
century, and attenuated forms of it continue (Anderson 1996). Indeed, much earlier Western
science is now discredited, from astrology to static continents. Some current international
science, such as string theory, is controversial enough that many serious experts would
class it with the Earth God. Science need not be true. In fact, a science made up of
proven facts is a dead science; science must explore and challenge. Modern laboratory
science is not some sort of perfect, flawless enterprise of modeling and analysis, but as
human as any other activity (Latour 2004, 2005; Merton 1973; Wimsatt 2007).
Various modern definitions of science are more restrictive. Positivist traditions insist
on explicit deduction and verification or falsification procedures (Kitcher 1993; Martin
and McIntyre 1994; Popper 1959). Some add requirements for predictive mathematical
modeling or highly controlled experimentation (laboratory or very systematic field trials).
The latter would, of course, rule out not only folk science but all field sciences, from
geomorphology and astronomy to most of field biology and paleontology. It would also
rule out all Western science before the late nineteenth century. This seems excessive; cutting
off modern science from the Greek, Near Eastern, and Renaissance, and even from the
“Scientific Revolution” of the seventeenth century, does not seem useful. If we are to recognize ancient Greek science as such, we cannot deny the label to comparably elaborate and
rationalized non-Western traditions.
Local Biology as Science
5
Traditional knowledge, however, is not always separated from other activities or given
a name equivalent to “science”. Gonzalez (2001) had to separate, artificially, Zapotec
“science” from what the Zapotecs simply called “knowledge”. Traditional knowledge is holistic, or at least it usually fuses what English would call “science” with what English would
label “religion”, “economics”, and so forth.
Thus, ethnobiologists, from the beginning, have dealt with traditional ecological knowledge as one package—ideally recording myths, religious practices, spiritual beliefs,
economic activities, kinship associations, and other related material along with strictly cognitive or “scientific” knowledge of plants and animals. An early and excellent work of this
sort was Frank Cushing’s study of maize and other grains among the Zuñi of New Mexico; it
originally appeared as articles in The Millstone, a trade journal, in 1884 and 1885 (Cushing
1920). Work of another pioneer, Paul Radin, has recently been edited and discussed by
Callicott and Nelson (2004). Radin was among the first to examine both the nature of traditional knowledge and the traditional knowledge of nature.
Ethnobiologists often study the religious symbolism of plants and animals (Hunn 1979).
Flowers, leaves, medicinal herbs, and other botanicals are routinely drawn on for religious
symbolism (Carvalho, 2011). Every culture that knows trees seems to have a sacred tree or
a set of tree myths. The birch in north Eurasia, the oak in ancient European paganism, the
banyan in south and southeast Asia, and the red cedar (Thuja plicata) in northwest North
America, provide examples. The “tree of knowledge of good and evil” in the Bible is traditionally considered an apple, but apples did not grow in the regions known to the ancient
Israelites, and the tree might have been the date, the wheat plant, or a purely imaginary tree.
Animals are similarly revered. The cow in India has attracted attention (Harris 1966;
Simoons 1994). Also in India, the wild goose (hamsa in Sanskrit; the word is cognate
with “goose”, “gander”, and Anser) is the symbol of the soul, because wild geese appear
in the fall and disappear in the spring, never staying to breed. In ancient times nobody
had the slightest idea where they went or how they reproduced. In Mesoamerica, the duck
is the symbol of the wind god (Ehecatl in Aztec civilization), perhaps for similar reasons;
millions of ducks used to winter in Mesoamerica, most of them disappearing in spring.
The ornithologist Herbert Friedmann devoted many years to exploring the religious symbolism of animals and birds in Renaissance paintings of Saint Jerome (Friedmann 1980).
Traditional people generally distinguish between such lore and their working knowledge
of nature. They recognize the difference between natural taxonomies and special-purpose,
human-adapted ones. They know perfectly well the difference between a well known, well
practiced technical operation and a prayer. The former is effective because one knows
what to do; the latter is only effective because the gods might possibly listen. (The marginal
and long debated case of “magic” might problematize this, but may be ignored here.)
Modern ethnobiology was born from this research on the traditional classification
and cognition of nature. It developed from biological, linguistic, and cognitive anthropological research at Harvard and Yale in the 1950s and early 1960s. This led to the field of
“ethnoscience”, a term coined by a group of George Murdock’s students at Yale in the
1950s. Notable among these was Harold Conklin (1957), whose ethnobotanical work was
mentored by the veteran botanist H. H. Bartlett. Charles Frake (1980) and others at Yale
were quickly recruited. Scholars at Harvard and other leading schools very soon followed
suit. Separate threads later joined in this cognitive program, including Cecil Brown’s
work (1984; Hunn and Brown, 2011), which showed the universality of life-form categories
like “tree”, “vine”, “snake”, and “bird”, and then Brent Berlin’s great summary Ethnobiological Classification (Berlin 1992). Medical ethnobiology also flourished (e.g., Etkin 1986,
1994, 2006; Etkin et al., 2011; Lewis and Elvin-Lewis 2003; Moerman 1998).
6
Chapter 1 Ethnobiology: Overview of a Growing Field
The new cognitive and cultural approaches of ethnobiology had been substantially presaged by developments in ethnobotany. In this the University of Michigan was critically
important, because of the links there between ethnobotany and archaeoethnobotany (Ford,
2011) as well as cognition, notably Scott Atran’s work (Atran 1990; Ross, 2011). Other
important centers of archaeoethnobiology, including the University of Arizona and the
University of Florida (where Elizabeth Wing led archaeozoology over a long and distinguished career), had increasing influence within ethnobiology from the 1960s onward.
Specialized archaeological techniques for analyzing flora and fauna arose (Adams 2001;
Delcourt and Delcourt 2004; Pearsall 2001; Piperno and Pearsall 1998; Weber 2001;
Weber and Belcher 2003; and the many relevant chapters in the present book).
In the 1960s, Harvard botanist Richard Evans Schultes shifted his self-label from economic botanist to ethnobotanist. As a leading scholar and popularizer of traditional medicines and drugs, he had much influence (e.g., Schultes 1976, 1978; Schultes and Hofmann
1992). He and his associate Siri von Reis Altschul edited a major (if uneven) review of
the field of ethnobotany (1995). Thereafter, economic botany attracted more and more ethnobotanists. Scholars in both fields became more interested in careful documentation of
traditional societies than in appropriating new plants for international economic purposes.
The Society for Economic Botany (founded in 1959, currently around 800 members) has
become strongly ethnobotanical, along with its journal Economic Botany (founded 1947
by Edmund Fulling). Economic botany, however, does not include ethnozoology or—
usually—archaeological approaches.
The rise of ecological and environmental anthropology has led to a large border zone
developing between mainstream ecological anthropology and the ethnobiological approach.
At first, relations could be far from cordial, as is seen in one leading cultural ecologist’s
scathing denunciation of ethnoscience (Harris 1968) and subtler but unmistakably dismissive answers (Frake 1980). Time led to accommodation and mutual learning, and ethnobiology was incorporated into ecological anthropology.
Inevitably, younger scholars in archaeobotany, archaeozoology, cultural ecology, and
ethnoscience discovered each other. The Society of Ethnobiology was founded in 1977
by paleoethnobotanists Stephen Emslie and Steven Weber. Its existence became widely
known after the first meeting, and ethnobiologists joined in numbers. The new core group
was exciting. For years, the Society of Ethnobiology was a major powerhouse of archaeological and cultural-anthropological theory and method.
The society has continued expand its intellectual base and to flourish. It now has over
500 members, and publishes the Journal of Ethnobiology (since 1981).
ETHNOBIOLOGY SPREADS OUT
More and more anthropologists have found ethnoscience methodology useful in studies far
beyond natural history. Steven Feld used elicitation techniques not only to study the biology
of the Kaluli of Papua New Guinea, but also their classification of musical genres and their
discourse on emotions (Feld 1982). Later Feld collaborated with Keith Basso in editing
Senses of Place (1996), which launched a tradition of studying cultural perceptions of landscapes (see Johnson and Davidson, 2011). Ethnoscientific methods have been propagated in
studies of the arts, emotions, learning, and phenomenology, and have been absorbed into the
broad stream of anthropological methods. Since early anthropology, many of those interested in ethnology, ethnobiology, and cognition have studied traditional map sense, navigation, ethnogeography, and place naming. This chain runs from Franz Boas and his students
Ethnobiology Spreads Out
7
in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries up to recent work. Recent studies show
that human and animal abilities to navigate, map, and track are far greater than previously
thought. Contrary to old ideas about human cognitive limitations in this regard, humans
form extremely detailed mental maps (not like printed maps, but no less effective) as well
as navigating by landmarks and known paths, and have complex and multiply structured
mental representations of landscapes (Istomin and Dwyer 2009). This allows us to understand the incredible performances of traditional navigators (Gladwin 1970; Hutchins 1995).
A major new area of research has been ethnoecology. This field was developed largely
in Mexico, by the great scholar and conservationist Victor Toledo (1992, 2002). A journal,
Etnoecologı́a, began under his direction, but did not survive. More recently, ethnoecological
research has addressed landscape management and modification by hunting and gathering
peoples (Nazarea 1999). Formerly considered to be almost without impact on “natural” landscapes, these groups have proved to be extremely important creators of vegetation types and
biotic assemblages. The research in question brings together biologists (M. K. Anderson
2005; Turner 2005; Davidson and Johnson, 2011), archaeologists (Delcourt and Delcourt
2004), geographers (Denevan 2001; Doolittle 2000), cultural anthropologists (Blackburn
and Anderson 1993), and others (even political scientists; Kay and Simmons 2002) in
impressive cooperation.
These understandings have seriously problematized “saving wild nature”. If wild nature
is not only not wild but not natural either, how can we save it? Do we maintain traditional
bow-hunting? The volume edited by Kay and Simmons poses this question. Europe has
had to face similar dilemmas for a long time, in dealing with the question of saving their
agroecological landscapes. National parks there are usually set up to preserve landscapes
known to be human-created; indeed, there are no even remotely “natural” landscapes in
Europe (Blavascunas 2008).
As ethnobiologists realized that they had to look comprehensively at entire traditional
knowledge systems, they began producing large works with wide appeal, and publishers
were often charmed. We now have beautiful large-format works like Richard Felger and
Mary Beth Felger’s People of the Desert and Sea (1985) and David Yetman’s The Great
Cacti (2007), as well as Amadeo Rea’s great trilogy of Oodham knowledge, At the
Desert’s Green Edge (1997), Folk Mammalogy of the Northern Pimans (1998), and
Wings in the Desert (2007). Rea mentored Gary Paul Nabhan, one of the earliest members
of the Society of Ethnobiology. Nabhan’s numerous books (see, e.g., Nabhan 1987, 1997,
2008) have won many prizes for nature writing and popular science.
Botanic gardens, among others, have published many ethnobotanies, such as the huge
Ethnoflora of the Soqotra Archipelago (Miller and Morris 2004) from the Royal Botanic
Garden Edinburgh. Major journals have devoted special issues to ethnobiology (e.g.,
Ellen 2006).
Following the success of Richard Evans Schultes’ books on drug plants, and the revival
of interest in traditional remedies and alternative medicine in general, many popular and well
illustrated medical floras have appeared. “Trade” publishers have thus seen it worthwhile to
publish some landmark ethnobiological works, such as Daniel Moerman’s Native American
Ethnobotany from Timber Press (1998).
Ironically, just as it was becoming more popular in the wider world, ethnobiology was
facing some academic opponents. Biology has moved toward molecular and cellular
research, where funding has been better than for organismal biology. Agricultural research,
which long provided support for economic botany and zoology, has faced limited funding.
Anthropology in the 1980s turned dramatically away from scientific and interdisciplinary
approaches. Cultural and social anthropology became overwhelmingly dominated by
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Chapter 1 Ethnobiology: Overview of a Growing Field
“postmodern” approaches derived from philosophical and literary studies. Not only scientific
anthropology but even mainstream cultural anthropology was largely displaced as a source
of ideas by literary criticism and interpretive history. In ecological anthropology, the focus
shifted from studies of traditional cultures to studies of the effects of modernization, globalization, and world politics on local groups. Usually, this reduced these groups to the status of
mere victims, their own traditions and languages being unimportant. Ecological and
environmental anthropology lost ground at several universities. Fortunately there were
always exceptions to this trend, and after 2000 anthropology moved back toward its traditional focus.
ETHNOBIOLOGY GOES INTERNATIONAL
In 1988, the International Society of Ethnobiology emerged (see Stepp et al. 2002).
European, Latin American, Asian, African, and Oceanian ethnobotanists now abound.
The field is one that can and does flourish in “Third World” countries, since it requires
little fixed capital investment and since most Third World countries have diverse populations
with many rich traditions of local knowledge and use of flora and fauna.
Ethnobiology has flourished in Mexico. The University of Yucatan has been issuing an
“Etnoflora Yucatanense” series for almost 20 years, and it includes several superb and major
works in ethnobotany, culminating in a monumental compilation by Arellano et al. (2003),
which lists almost 1000 species of plants with their uses and names in Spanish and/or
Yucatec Maya. A leading ethnoecologist, Enrique Leff, has also had influence far beyond
specialized circles; Leff is in fact one of the great social theorists of Latin America. His
work is, alas, far too poorly known in English (see Leff 1995). Latin American ethnoecology
has linked outward to the whole area of Indigenous rights and politics, and thus has gone
beyond the scope of the present volume. A survey of this area for Anglophone readers
was sorely needed, and has indeed appeared, in Arturo Escobar’s magistral survey and
study Territories of Difference (2008).
An Indian ethnobotanical society emerged in India around S. K. Jain in the 1970s; Jain’s
journal Ethnobotany continues to flourish. The importance of work in India, China, and
other countries has made ethnobiology one of the few scientific fields in which Third
World countries are leading players with important journals and centers. Ethnobiology
has been something of a western hemisphere field, but rapidly increasing numbers of studies
in the eastern hemisphere are making it more international.
The clearest and worst limitation of the present volume is its lack of specific and detailed
coverage of these regional traditions. Unfortunately, no one has stepped forward to provide a
ready synthesis. (In any case, the present volume was intended to introduce topical areas, not
geographic ones. A major effort by a number of European ethnobiologists led to a chapter
reviewing European ethnobiology, but no comparable efforts could be organized in other
areas.) Obviously, a world summary of ethnobiology is sorely needed, and we hope to
address this in the near future.
“TEK” and its Sorrows
An emergent problem is a cost of partial success at convincing governments and agencies
that traditional knowledge is worthy of attention. Traditional ecological knowledge has
become “TEK” (often pronounced as one syllable, “tek”). From a vast and fluid pool of
wisdom, it has become a bureaucratic object. Paul Nadasdy (2004, 2007) has pointed out
Moving Toward More Local Participation
9
that, once thus pigeonholed, TEK can all too often be quarantined and ignored, and so can
the people who possess it (see also Schreiber and Newell 2006). Even among those with
better intentions, TEK is often relegated to a past that is considered possibly romantic but
surely irrelevant. This is a false stereotype. TEK is highly accurate, flexible and adaptable,
and thus extremely relevant to all aspects of managing natural resources in today’s world. In
fact, the survival of the human race may depend on saving not only the specifics (plant drugs,
new crops) but, more importantly, the traditional ways of managing resources and motivating people to conserve them (Anderson 1996).
One of the problems Nadasdy identifies is that traditional people often have trouble discussing their knowledge in analytic language. This is because so much of TEK is experiential and procedural, or culturally constructed from procedural knowledge. It is notoriously
difficult to talk about procedural knowledge, as all psychologists know (and see Goulet
1998; Marcus 2002). Conversely, the bureaucratic biologists Nadasdy studied were not
field trained (as biologists in my generation were); they were apparently trained almost exclusively in classrooms and laboratories. They had only analytic, linear knowledge of biology.
They lacked the hands-on, experiential, procedural knowledge that biologists of earlier generations acquired. Field time with First Nations persons improves the situation (Nadasdy,
pers. commun., 2007). Conservation biologists and other practical field workers need to
work with rural traditional people, for mutual benefit.
Such considerations have led to a renewed interest in how traditional knowledge is transmitted. We know that children learn what their parents and peers find important. Children
attend to their elders’ ideas of salience. We also find that traditional knowledge everywhere
is taught through stories, songs, physical participation in activities, and other methods that
engage the emotional, aesthetic, and physical as well as the cognitive portions of experience.
This is total-person learning. It is part of a rich, full engagement with the world, rather than
being isolated as rote memorization in a classroom. The desperate need of the modern world
to educate children about nature and to use these ways of doing it is now well known (Louv
2005). Once again we can learn from traditional cultures. A major need of ethnobiology is to
point out the different “ways of knowing” (Goulet 1998) and to teach people to learn each
others’ ways.
MOVING TOWARD MORE LOCAL PARTICIPATION
The 1990s saw a rapid growth of new ethical standards (see Bannister and Hardison, and
Gilmore and Eshbaugh, present volume). Certain notorious and well publicized cases of
appropriating traditional wisdom for individual gain led to coining the term “biopiracy”,
and to powerful opposition to it. As early as the 1960s, Mexico failed to capitalize on its original monopoly on the wild yams that were the source of the birth control pill; the story is told
in a major recent history book (Soto Laveaga 2009). The most noted cases involved attempts
to monopolize traditional South Asian ethnobotanical knowledge through patenting. United
States patent rules in the 1980s and 1990s had evolved to favor corporations and patenters
against public access, “prior art”, and claims of common knowledge. This allowed a scientist
to attempt to patent neem oil from the tree Azadirachta indica, used medicinally in India (and
more or less everywhere Indians have gone) for thousands of years (Shiva 1997). Then an
American attempted to patent the term “basmati”, originally a North Indian word for fragrant
rice varieties, for a new rice variety that was not even fragrant. This would have made it
difficult or impossible to use the term for real basmatis in the lucrative export market.
Indian scientists, and eventually the Indian government, took the lead in fighting such
10
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Ethnobiology: Overview of a Growing Field
expropriation. Vandana Shiva (1997, 2001) has been a powerful and vocal advocate for tighter ethical standards. She and many others have argued that current pro-corporation interpretations of patent law, especially by the U.S. Patent Office, are extreme, counterproductive,
and on very shaky legal ground (see Aoki 2008; Brown 2003; Vogel 1994, 2000).
This led to questioning even legitimate and well intentioned plant and medicine exploration and bioprospecting (Berlin and Berlin 1996, 2000; Hayden 2003), and eventually led to
the virtual shutdown of such efforts. The drug firms, in particular, which spend large sums
and take large risks in developing drugs from plant and animal sources, have essentially
closed down their natural products operations except in cases where open access and
public record are undeniable. Paradoxically, the success of the giant firms in getting their
way in patenting had shut down an entire promising industry. Many ethnobiologists know
excellent remedies that would help the world, but their lips are now sealed. The toll in
human suffering increases every day that this impasse remains unresolved.
Full collaboration with local and Indigenous people is no new thing in anthropology;
Native American ethnographers have been active since the mid-nineteenth century. An
early classic of ethnobotany was Gilbert Wilson’s collection of agricultural knowledge
from Buffalo Bird Woman, a Hidatsa farmer (Wilson 1917). It has recently reissued
under Buffalo Bird Woman’s name. Many works followed, as collections of “native life histories” and other relevant documents became standard in anthropology. Native Americans
and other Indigenous people often became professional anthropologists and ethnographers
and did their own collecting; one ethnobiologically important example is the Greenlander
ethnologist Knud Rasmussen (see, e.g., 1999). Among more recent classics are the works
of Ian Saem Majnep, a Papua New Guinea subsistence farmer and folk biologist who
has collaborated with Ralph Bulmer (Majnep and Bulmer 1977, 2007). Jesus Salinas
Pedraza’s wonderful ethnography of his Nyahnyu community in Mexico (Bernard and
Salinas Pedraza 1989) also contains much fascinating ethnobiological material; an outsider
would not be likely to record under uses of the mesquite tree the fact that it is delightful to lie
under the tree and watch the birds playing in it.
It has now become common for Indigenous and non-indigenous coworkers to coauthor
books, as in the case of the many ethnobotanies of Nancy Turner and collaborators (e.g.,
Turner et al. 1990; and for other examples see, e.g., Anderson and Medina Tzuc 2005;
Hunn 1990). Larry Evers worked with Yaqui deer-singer Felipe Molina on a collection,
Yaqui Deer Songs (Evers and Molina 1987), that brings together some of the finest nature
poetry anywhere. We are, hopefully, at the beginning of a major flowering of Indigenous
works on local biological knowledge.
INTERFACING WITH POLITICAL ECOLOGY
Political ecology arose as an early spinoff of cultural ecology; the term was introduced by
Eric Wolf (1972). It rose to prominence in the 1990s. Political agendas led to renewed interest in traditional knowledge. Conversely, those interested in traditional knowledge became
more and more concerned with its fate in the modern world. Many major works in political
ecology are particularly relevant to ethnobiology, and typically draw on its methodology
(see, e.g., Agrawal 2005; Cruikshank 2005; Tsing 2005; West 2006). The boundary between
political ecology and ethnobiology is completely blurred by research that focuses on the political ecology of particular species and of conservation efforts, such as Janice Harper’s
Endangered Species (2002) and Celia Lowe’s Wild Profusion (2006). Problems of nature
Ethnobiology as Future
11
reserves, which often exclude the very Indigenous people who created the “nature” in the
first place, have received particular attention (West et al. 2006; cf. Scott 1998).
Ethnobiologists have been able to address ethical and political– ecological questions
on the basis of highly rigorous knowledge of actual circumstances among Indigenous and
small-scale communities. Major collections of papers addressing these issues have now
appeared (Laird 2002; Maffi 2001; Stepp et al. 2002). Anderson (2003, 2005; Anderson
and Medina Tzuc 2005) used ethnobiology to address political ecology. Eugene Hunn
(1990) addressed political questions in a major ethnobiological study. Nancy Turner’s
ethnobotanical work has moved toward political application (Turner 2005).
ETHNOBIOLOGY AS FUTURE
Johann Herder (2002; original papers, late eighteenth century) was apparently the first
person, at least in the Western world, to argue explicitly and in detail that other cultures
deserve full consideration and appreciation as creations of the human spirit. This view
entered anthropology, largely via Adolph Bastian and his student Franz Boas. Boas spent
his life trying desperately to record local traditions, especially art and oral literature,
before they went down before the onslaughts of racist colonialism. The Herder – Boasian
view became rather widespread, though far from universal, in anthropology. It remains
almost unknown in many other fields. Tragically (from an ethnobiological point of view),
it is particularly lacking in the fields of economic development and global education. In
spite of lip service, most development and change agents display little recognition that
local traditions—including TEK—are worthy of respect.
Indeed, recent decades have seen a sad retreat even in anthropology from the old goals of
valuing diversity, saving local achievements, and respecting other people’s works. Much of
the Boasian agenda is dismissed as “salvage ethnography”. Some fear that Boasian ethnography freeze-frames a culture. Yet, field ethnobiologists are aware that folk knowledge systems are dynamic and innovative, and we study their changes and developments assiduously.
There is also a desperate need to record knowledge that is being forgotten, and, far more
importantly, to save the cultures, languages, and ecosystems whose death is causing the forgetting. Many of the finest creations of the human spirit are dying out. Often, the destruction
is genocidal; few nations are not stained with the blood of their Indigenous peoples.
More often today the destruction of culture is the result of deliberate or inadvertent policies in education, media, and popular commercial arts. If people wish to give up their traditions, outsiders cannot stop them, but too often Indigenous groups have been bullied or
tricked into accepting their oppressors’ destructive agendas. All persons of goodwill must
join to fight genocide and culturocide. In recent decades many groups have recovered at
least some of their languages and cultural forms from old ethnographies. Denying future
generations the right to do this, and to protect the habitats on which they depend to maintain
their ways of life, is a social injustice. Ethnobiology is a major part of the ongoing effort to
save these natural and human worlds.
A Note on Usage
Per Canadian practice (many of our authors being Canadian), and increasingly the practice
elsewhere, Indigenous is capitalized. (In Canada it refers to a specific designated set of
people, and thus is a proper noun; elsewhere, usage is moving in that direction.)
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Otherwise, authors use standard, linguistically-accurate transliterations and spellings, but
have been free to choose when there are alternative adequate systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
E. N. Anderson is deeply grateful to all the authors for their exemplary cooperation and help through
the long gestation of this project.
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interpretation. Studies in the Social Sciences 9.
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WIMSATT WC. Re-engineering philosophy for limited beings:
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Harvard University Press; 2007.
WOLF E. Ownership and political ecology. Anthrop Quart
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YETMAN D. The great cacti: ethnobotany and biogeography.
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YOON CK. Naming nature: the clash between instinct and
science. New York: WW Norton; 2009.
Chapter
2
History of Ethnobiology
RICHARD I. FORD
Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
THE BEGINNING
15
ETHNOBOTANY
16
ETHNOZOOLOGY
17
STAGES OF ETHNOBIOLOGY
18
STAGE 1. ETHNOECOLOGY
19
STAGE 2. TEK: TRADITIONAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE
20
STAGE 3. INDIGENOUS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND RIGHTS
21
CONCLUSION
22
REFERENCES
23
THE BEGINNING
Ethnobiology was first formally defined by Edward F. Castetter at the University of
New Mexico (Castetter 1944: 160) as “. . . utilization of plant and animal life by primitive
peoples . . .”. His goal was to integrate two well established ethnoscience fields—
ethnobotany and ethnozoology. Both fields began without a name and had ancient antecedents in Asia and the Mediterranean basin. These were the recorded observations of “the
other”, cultures that differed from the dominant culture outside urban areas in state-level
societies, by explorers, traders, and government officials. Some of the first were in Egypt,
China (Anderson 1988), and India, especially of plant and animal medicines and foods
(Minnis 2000: 6). Other Europeans reported local plants from colonial areas, and Georg
Eberhard Rumphius’ Herbarium Amboinense was an influence on Carl Linnaeus during
the eighteenth century when developing the biological classification system that became universal in the biological sciences. These biological observations and reports were useful as
part of state expansion and colonialism.
In the New World similar records of uses of plants and animals by “the others” were part
of a process of familiarization with a new land and its peoples. Columbus started the process,
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
15
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Chapter 2
History of Ethnobiology
but other explorers and traders did the same, for example, Champlain, Kalm, Bartram, and
the Jesuits (Thwaites 1901). In Mexico Ortiz de Montellano (1990) has documented how
natives were brought into formal education by Bernardino de Sahagún and recorded
Aztec uses of nature in what is called the Florentine Codices (Hunn 2007).
Colonial America witnessed records by the travelers and traders as well as scientific
explorers from Europe (Josselyn 1672) and the intelligentsia of the colonies (Rush 1774).
With the founding of the United States, agents for the new government investigated the
continent to assist colonization of new lands. The Lewis and Clark Expedition (Cutright
2003), boundary surveys (Emory 1857; Hunter 1823), and railroad surveys (Wheeler
1889) all included scientists to identify the plants and animals they encountered. Spanish
missionaries and agents did the same in Arizona. By the middle of the eighteenth century
specialized botanists (Brown 1868; Palmer 1871, 1878), zoologists (Wheeler 1889), and
educated adventurers (Powers 1874) were observing the use of nature in the west by
Indians. It was only a manner of time before the topics of numerous publications would
be codified into distinctive disciplines.
ETHNOBOTANY
Stephen Powers made the first effort by calling the uses of plants by California Indians
“aboriginal botany” (Powers 1874). Several others used this term, but in 1895 the
botanist John Harshberger coined “ethno-botany” to account for the many uses of plants
by ethnographic and prehistoric cultures (Harshberger 1896). Quickly the field was
informally defined, although Harshberger did not provide a definition. Some used his
spelling (Fewkes 1896) and although a few did not adopt the term (Chestnut 1902),
the first PhD in the field was awarded in Chicago in 1900 to David Barrows (1900). The discipline was distinctly American and was mainly utilitarian in focus. By the middle of the
twentieth century many Indian tribes had at least one ethnobotany, and a few—Hopi,
Navajo, Iroquois—had several (see Handbook of North American Indians for tribes
and references). At the start of the twentieth century most reports were written by botanists
or anthropologists with a botanist to identify the plants (Robbins et al. 1916). A few were
produced by Indians (e.g., Parker 1910), and only two by women, Stevenson (1914) and
Friere-Marreco.
Ethnobotanical studies in the United States became specialized by topic, and the field
expanded as practitioners entered it with different training and interests. Studies about
basketry, textiles (Safford 1914), dyes, medicines (Smith 1929), hallucinogens, especially
peyote (La Barre 1970), and food plants (Waugh 1914; Yanovsky 1936) appeared. These
were topics of anthropological interest.
Before the mid-twentieth century, ethnobotany was a recognized subdiscipline in
anthropology. Several Indians published reports (Nequatewa 1933; Tantaquidgeon 1928;
Teit 1928), women were prominent, and the majority of the publications now focused on
paleoethnobotany (archaeology), which interpreted plant remains based on ethnographic
analogy. The main definition of ethnobotany was provided by Jones (1936): “the study
of the interrelations of primitive man and plants”. Ethnobotanical plant references for
American Indians were so numerous that they formed the basis for two encyclopedic references by Moerman (1986, 1998).
The utilitarian phase of ethnobotany is the international approach to the field with its
goal of using the new information about plants to launch economic production in the
home country. This reflects the influence Richard Schultes (Schultes and von Reis 1993)
Ethnozoology
17
had with his emphasis on “economic botany”. Today there are more ethnobotanists in India
than in any other country (Ford 2001: 4).
In the United States academic ethnobotany shifted to plant nomenclature and
classification as a way to learn about plants from the natives’ perspectives. Harrington,
during his studies of the Tewa speakers in the Southwest, began to recognize the importance
of names, their relationships, and the plant characteristics selected to recognize them
(Robbins et al. 1916). This detailed linguistic approach was rarely followed until Conklin
(1954) carried out Hanunóo work in the Philippines and was quickly followed by Berlin
and co-workers (Berlin et al. 1974) and later by students with the highland Maya (Hunn
1977) and in Peru. These linguistic studies allowed generalizations about ethnoclassification
(Berlin 1992) and comparative analysis (Brown 1984). The “new ethnography” altered the
study of ethnobotanical fieldwork. Ethically, ethnobotanists are expected to gain permission
from the local group before commencing research, to have the scope of the work and final
products understood by the group, to work in the local language, and to express plant
names in the local language as well as by international botanical binomials.
Paleoethnobotany has been very productive with the advent and near universal
application of dry sieving of sediment, water, and chemical flotation of soil, pollen analyses,
phytolith identification, and wet site plant recovery. These have produced enormous quantities of data which have yielded special insights into the reconstruction of past environments, diets, and lifeways (Pearsall 1996). The same methods and DNA analyses of plant
tissue and seeds have enhanced our knowledge of plant management and domestication
(Smith 1998; Staller et al. 2006). These are methodological revolutions in comparison to
the desiccated plant parts and macro-remains that Volney Jones had to work with when
he started the American identification of archaeological plant remains (Griffin 1978;
Jones 1936). The topic that has generated the most interest and attention has been the pathway to domesticated plants, using accelerator dating methods on small samples to resolve the
chronologies (Smith 1990).
The maturity of ethnobotany as a scientific field is reflected in its professional membership associations and methodological manuals. The professional organizations include the
Society for Economic Botany, Culture & Agriculture, the Society of Ethnobotany (India)
and the journals Ethnobotany and Medicine, Ethnomedicine, Journal of Ethnobiology
and Ethnomedicine (online), Culture and Agriculture, Ethnobotany Research and
Applications, Journal of Food and Nutrition, and Ethnomedizin (Germany). The standard
ethnobotanical methodology is found in Alexiades (1996), Cotton (1996), and Martin
(1995). We will later discuss ethnobotany further as an important part of ethnobiology.
ETHNOZOOLOGY
This subdiscipline developed later than ethnobotany but, ironically, the first ethnoscience
named was “ethno-conchology” (the study of shell money), as part of this field (Stearns
1889). It is defined as the study of the past and present interrelationships between cultures
and the animals in their environment. It includes nomenclature and classification of zoological forms, beliefs about them, and the use of wild and domestic animals. An international
component started early because British missionaries and colonial officers were birders
(e.g., Sibree 1891). However, as the utilization of animals became part of local ethnographic
study, most of the publications in the nineteenth century concerned American Indian tribes
(Mearns 1896; Murdoch 1898; Ross 1861).
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Chapter 2
History of Ethnobiology
In the beginning few complete ethnozoologies were published. The exception is
the pioneering study of Tewa ethnozoology by Henderson (zoologist) and Harrington
(linguist) (1914), who were also to use the term “ethnozoology.” This study lists the
animals by order and scientific and Tewa name. It gives the habitat of each and its cultural
uses. Two Pueblo studies followed later in the century but neither approached Harrington
for thoroughness (Beidleman 1956; White 1947). Several Native American groups
have had more comprehensive studies. Malkin (1962) recorded the Seri, and Fradkin
(1990) the Cherokee. Another comprehensive study was by Gilmore (1950) who produced
a thorough overview of Indian uses of animals on the South American continent.
Most studies concentrated on a single zoological order such as mollusks (Harrington
1945), insects (Bodenheimer 1951), reptiles and amphibians (Speck and Dodge
1945), fish (Rostlund 1952), and birds. There are very few local tribal ethnozoology
studies.
Ethnozoology moved away from its utilitarian emphasis in research to classification
and intellectual interests. Bulmer’s research in New Guinea contributed cultural insight
into classificatory research (Bulmer 1967a,b). The ethnozoology monographs published
in the past 40 years are very different from those of earlier generations. Students of Berlin
well versed in the theory of animal classification wrote dissertations that broke the mold
of earlier studies (Anderson 1967; Hunn 1977). Rea (1998, 2007) reported on the
Northern Pima in ways that set new standards. Ellen (1993) rephrased the intellectual
debate in ethnozoology and showed why religious studies (Douglas 1957) were critical to
understanding human –animal relations. Nabhan’s (2003) sea turtle study reveals another
example of belief systems and animal appreciation. Ethnozoology is now well integrated
into current anthropological theoretical discussions.
Zooarchaeology employs the techniques used by morphological zoologists, comparative anatomical studies, and DNA analyses. The remains are retrieved from sediment
with some of same techniques—sieving and flotation—that paleoethnobotanists use.
However, the interpretations of the bones do not depend upon ethnographic analogy from
published ethnozoology studies (Reitz and Wing 2007). Most are local studies of faunal
remains from single sites (Reitz and Scarry 1984) or those in local regions (Cleland
1966). The excavation of sites representing state societies in the Near East and historic
United States allowed zooarchaeology to present arguments about past animal care and
harvesting, and provisioning urban populations, which are missing from written records
(Zeder 1990). The major sub-field of study has been on animal domestication. This was
first tackled with morphological examination of bones and then most recently with DNA
analyses (Zeder 2006). Europeans have been major contributors to all these studies (e.g.,
Anthony 2007; Clutton-Brock 1999).
STAGES OF ETHNOBIOLOGY
The ethnobiology discussed at the University of New Mexico in the early twentieth century
was not distinctive (Hough 1931). It basically subsumed two existing fields, ethnobotany
and ethnozoology. The criticism applies to the ethnobiology program Castetter created
there. His definition of the field was a constellation of people– plants – animals (Castetter
1944: 160). The resulting publications were a compilation of biological facts but lacked a
paradigm to integrate them, for example, Castetter (1935) and Castetter and Bell (1951).
Castetter did recognize the merit of exploring culture to understand the relationships and
Stages of Ethnobiology
19
for some problems he acknowledged that its explanatory power was greater than a biological
perspective. He took a broadside against the emerging field of economic botany as being the
commercialization of plants in advanced societies.
Several anthropologists have assessed the history and current status of ethnobiology
(Casagrande 2004; Clément 1998; Ford 2001; Hunn 2007). In this paper I acknowledge
Hunn’s efforts. Ethnobiology is a mature science that is not only the sum of its historic disciplines. It builds upon advances brought to ethnosciences by linguistic analyses of folk
classifications and the meaning behind nomenclature. These dimensions introduce it to cognitive anthropology (Medin and Atran 1999). It contributes to the complexity of cultural
relations with nature that the other subdisciplines alone did not consider, biological ethics
and intellectual property rights.
Stage 1. Ethnoecology (Hunn 2007)
Ecology provides two important principles for the development of an integrating approach
to ethnobiology, the concept of the ecosystem, and the biological population as a quantifying
variable in ecological models. The ecosystem allows specific, locally named plant and
animal species to interact with physical environmental features, for example, precipitation,
temperature, etc. Each species in the local ecosystem can be counted. One population,
which is central to the ecosystem, is the human population whose dependence on technology
and beliefs about the other creatures controls the functioning of the system. Plants and animals are not distinguished by uses or for separate study. Most of the problems addressed by
ethnobiology depend upon these central concepts (Moran 1984). Although this approach in
anthropology is now passé, it was productive to get the field to the next stage, for example,
Rappaport (1967).
Innovative research in ethnology and archaeology has followed these organizing principles. It has directed productive studies in ethnogeography (Hunn 1990) and in complex
terrestrial ecosystems (Gomez-Pompa 2003). It introduced innovative ways to examine
environmental change (Rea 1983). In archaeology it provided qualitative models to understand past human subsistence by measuring food production and the environmental impact
of growing or harvesting sufficient food to keep a human population healthy. Wetterstrom
(1986) set the standard with her study at Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico. Styles (1986) used
an alternative model in the Illinois Valley. Schoeninger and Spielmann (1986) used geochemical analyses to determine past protein in a Trans-Pecos diet and to hypothesize
about what food was missing from prehistoric subsistence. Archaeologists worked to understand human – biological relationships by reconstructing local ecosystems (e.g., MacMahon
and Marquardt 2003).
New approaches to ethnobiology resulted from recognizing ecological principles
as vital to innovative research and a break with the past for ethnobiology research.
Balée (1994) set a challenge for future ethnobotany in Amazonia. Other changes happened
in ethnobiology with the recognition of ecosystems. Plants and animals were no longer
mere named life forms but also had chemical properties that people need in food and
medicine (Kuhnlein and Turner 1991) and spiritual qualities that people revere or fear. As
ethnoecology evolved with an emphasis on local populations with needs and problems,
applied anthropologists acknowledged that desecration by outsiders should be addressed
in order to assist the welfare of local people (Posey et al. 1984). This established a need
to understand how Indigenous people managed their resources. Another stage of ethnobiology began.
20
Chapter 2
History of Ethnobiology
Stage 2. TEK: Traditional Ecological Knowledge
One of the most salient contributions of ethnobiology has been the recognition and
importance of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). As simple as the concept appears,
it is very pervasive when considered relative to contemporary issues such as environmental
protection, species preservation, biodiversity, and ecosystem restoration (Cunningham
1999). It is instrumental in changing land use policies like fire management. When the
techniques are operational, they demonstrate alternative methods for resource protection
different from college natural resource courses. TEK is not a commodity for appropriation
or exploitation but environmental processes willingly shared by native people to “protect
Mother Earth”.
TEK is part of the local knowledge that is learned in a community (Nazarea 1999).
It comes from hands-on participation and first-hand observation reinforced by stories and
religious beliefs. This knowledge may be gender limited and distributed according to information networks in the community. The intervention in plant growth or animal distribution
varies according to the technological and social techniques available. For plants these may
be at different stages in a life cycle—sowing seeds, coppicing shrubs, whipping trees, or digging for roots (Anderson 2005). For animals it may be hunting only in one season or one
gender of a species. Applying these methods across a community results in a “domesticated
landscape”. If the humans leave, the habitat changes; its configuration is anthropogenic
(Deur and Turner 2004).
Fire in the ecosystem is a special case. Natural fires can occur, usually with higher frequency than under the suppression policy after “Smokey the Bear”. Fire was used throughout
the world where applicable as a human controlled “tool” for many objectives. By demonstrating that fire is not always destructive and, when targeted and managed, it benefits the
ecosystem, K. Anderson (2005) and others have changed local forest management practices
in California by the Forest Service. This is a significant admission of ignorance because
managers usually regard Indigenous knowledge as superstitious or uninformed and dangerous to implement!
In Benin (tropical Africa) forest access has been contentious. Park rangers have
attempted to exclude local people; at the same time professional foresters have demonstrated
that in order to maintain the forest structure one needs the people to continue their harvesting
practices. Other examples of the benefits of aboriginal management can be shown around the
world (Posey and Balée 1989).
Effective conservation and environmental justice have required the saving of appropriate seed for restoration and traditional agricultural practices (Nabhan 1989). It also demands
cooperation and the concurrence of local people (Zerner 2000). Native people are involved
by practicing in situ conservation that allows Indigenous people to manage the plants and
their growth in natural contexts (Tuxill and Nabhan 1996).
Biodiversity is impossible to understand without a local human perspective that examines biological knowledge, beliefs, and behavior. Nazarea (1999) has examined the cultural
dimensions of biodiversity. Many scientific studies have addressed biodiversity to expose
the extent and degree that humans create and maintain diversity, as the authors in Minnis
and Elisens (2000) demonstrate throughout North America.
Ecosystem restoration has always posed one intractable problem: restore to what? This
is where archaeology digitates with contemporary ethnobiology. The baseline changes
depending upon the past date selected. Habitats always endure disturbance and processes
of succession renew them. Paleoethnobiology exposes the different seres in a succession
Stages of Ethnobiology
21
sequence. To account for those stages requires a cultural reconstruction to know the level
of cultural complexity and the size of the local population occupying the area under
reconstruction. Restoration ecology depends upon one branch of historical ecology that
concerns archaeology and paleoenvironmental sciences (Egan and Howell 1999). Preagricultural communities had a different environmental signature on the landscape from
that of swidden agriculturalists. Delcourt (1999) has demonstrated how environmental
sciences can reveal meaningful habitat changes in the same location over time in the eastern
deciduous forest.
Unfortunately, in the drive toward modernity, in many areas TEK has been disparaged
and rejected. This has been to the detriment of the biotic environment and the wellbeing of
local people when preservation of their own ways is beneficial (Hunn 2002). Berkes (1999)
shows that peoples’ cultural core beliefs are part of TEK.
Stage 3. Indigenous Intellectual Property and Rights
In Stage 2 the ethnobiologist became the student and the “native intellectual” the teacher.
This role reversal brings humility and hopefully gratitude to the ethnobiologist. The consequences raise ethical issues, cultural property rights questions, and concerns about
Indigenous power in nation states.
The days of “hit and run” ethnobiology are over. In the past ethnobiologists felt a proprietary right to knowledge obtained from native people and a right to their biotic products.
Medicine plants could be appropriated (token compensation made it right, converted a
resource into a commodity, and a transfer of rights to the possessor). Agricultural plants
could be removed to be grown elsewhere with little understanding of future consequences.
Medicine plants and knowledge of their efficacy were exportable without community knowledge. Tropical South America was like a candy shop with lots of cheap penny sweets for
the taking.
This has changed with the institution of codes of ethics by many professional organizations, agreed to on acceptance of membership. Others are at the corporate level with
bioprospecting requiring a fair compensation agreement. Posey (1990) worked during his
career to make these agreements fair to Indigenous people and a legal reality. Unfortunately,
the possibility that a profitable new drug from an Indigenous source of knowledge will be
marketable is remote, and Indigenous people usually get nothing unless there is upfront
payment, regardless of results. Problems arise despite good intentions when a nation
state insists, often legally, that it receive any compensation and control payments. The
International Society of Ethnobiology has been at the forefront of requiring ethical practices
and providing good models for proper field conduct. Their Code of Ethics can be found on
their website, http://www.ethnobiology.net, and is now standard for the field.
Michael Brown (2003) has asked: “Who owns culture?” In the past, without articulating
a philosophical argument, ethnobiologists assumed that Indigenous knowledge was individual property to be exploited. Brown examined critical issues about intellectual property
disputes and misunderstandings in order to seek a clearer understanding. Riley (2004) and
her authors carried the concerns forward by examining legal issues and innovative ways to
protect Indigenous property and rights. Ethnobiologists begin research by recognizing and
acknowledging Indigenous rights. Interviewing an informant, compensating for time
taken, and removing the tapes and notes all with only his/her permission solved the problem.
It no longer does. Knowledge generated by an individual might be hers. Other knowledge
22
Chapter 2
History of Ethnobiology
is community property no matter who knows it. Songs, sacred artifacts, medicinal formulas,
etc. are categories that often are not transferable without proper authority (Brush 1996).
The assertion of Indigenous authority has been fostered by ethnobiologists misbehaving. First, ethnobiologists need to obtain permission from the local community to
do fieldwork. Second, they must be upfront about their objectives and procedures. Third,
the final product must be understood. Local Indigenous authorities now have the power
to restrict research, to redefine a project, or to approve it. They also have the power to initiate
research, but on their own terms. For example, lawyers representing tribal interests hired
ethnobiologists to conduct research for tribal land claims and these were subsequently
published since they already were part of the legal public record, for example, Colton
(1974). Native American tribes have sovereignty to contract with ethnobiologists to assist
them with land claims and water rights cases. They can dictate the questions for the research
and how the results can be used. This does not mean that new information cannot be obtained
as part of the research, but it is often an unintended consequence. There is also an effort to
train tribal members to do work that outsiders did in the past. With more Native Americans
going to college and professional schools, there is a cadre of qualified professionals in some
communities. Many are filling archaeology or environmental assessment positions. Native
Americans are increasingly writing their own tribal ethnobiologies, for example,
Watahomigie (1982) and Salmón (2000).
This new relationship between ethnobiologists and Native peoples poses challenges to
applied anthropology. Anthropologists are needed by tribal people but not to implement an
externally conceived program of action. The Indigenous people have their own perceived
needs and want ethnobiologists to assist them in achieving their goals. These may include
reclaiming tribal land, protecting water quality, halting logging, or stopping mining. They
may want help in initiating ecotourism or creating archaeological parks.
CONCLUSION
The subjects of ethnobiology today certainly would not be recognized by biological field
scientists or anthropologists in 1900. Practitioners of the discipline have made deliberate
decisions to explore new directions aiming to preserve its original subjects: Indigenous
people and biota. How to do this is the new challenge. Is it simply a philosophical position
or is there the political will to achieve this objective at any cost? Ellen (2003) sees the answer
as the ultimate test for this relatively new field.
Ethnobiology is dominated by anthropologists in North American and Western Europe.
They reflect the directions that professional anthropology is moving in. They are joined and
encouraged by organizations of Indigenous peoples worldwide. In other parts of the developing world most ethnobiologists are biological scientists with little social science training.
The discipline has made a conscious decision to be international in scope and relevance, but
the resolution of these basic philosophical and methodological differences will set the
research and political agendas for the discipline. These new directions are unknown.
Trends for the future of ethnobiology have been addresses by many practitioners, for
example, Casagrande (2004), Ford (2001), Hunn (2007) and Sillitoe (2004), all of whom
express optimism about the future. Most importantly it has been debated by the Ethnobiology Working Group in 2003 sponsored by NSF at the Missouri Botanical Garden and
at professional meetings abroad such as the more anthropological International Society of
Ethnobiology. Similar conferences and roundtables will provide assessments of new directions for this vibrant field. One concern is that the discipline does not relinquish its
References
23
prominence for field studies. Innovative research based upon Indigenous people’s comprehension and participation now characterizes the “center of gravity” for ethnobiology, in
Castetter’s words. Studies like Hunn’s recent work in San Juan Gbëë bring distinction to
ethnobiology and serve as a model for ethical research by the next generation of students.
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GRIFFIN JB. Volney Hurt Jones, ethnobotanist: an appreciation. The Nature and Status of Ethnobotany. Anthropological Papers 67, Museum of Anthropology. Ann Arbor:
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HENDERSON J, HARRINGTON JP. Ethnozoology of the Tewa
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JONES V. The vegetal remains of Newt Kash Hollow Shelter.
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JOSSELYN J. New England rarities discovered. London: G.
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LE BARRE W. The Peyote cult. Camden (CT): Shoe String
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MARTIN G. Ethnobotany, a methods manual. New York:
Chapman & Hall; 1995.
MEARNS EA. Ornithological vocabulary of the Moki Indians.
Amer Anthropol 1896;9:391 –403.
MEDIN DL, ATRAN S, editors. Folkbiology. Cambridge (MA):
MIT Press; 1999.
MINNIS PE, editor. Ethnobotany, a reader. Norman (OK):
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MINNIS PE, ELISENS WJ. Biodiversity and native America.
Norman (OK): University of Oklahoma Press; 2000.
MOERMAN DE. Medicinal plants of Native Americans.
Technical Report 19. Museum of Anthropology,
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MOERMAN DE. Native American Ethnobotany. Portland (OR):
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PEARSALL DM. Paleoethnobotany, a handbook of procedures.
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Chapter
3
Ethics in Ethnobiology: History,
International Law and Policy,
and Contemporary Issues
PRESTON HARDISON
Tulalip Tribes of Washington, Tulalip, WA
KELLY BANNISTER
Director, POLIS Project on Ecological Governance, and Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Human and Social
Development, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC
INTRODUCTION
28
HISTORY OF RESEARCH ETHICS AS RELATED TO ETHNOBIOLOGY
30
ETHNOBIOLOGICAL ETHICS AND THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF ETHNOBIOLOGY
32
INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POLICY DEBATES AND NEGOTIATIONS
35
KEY CONCEPTS, TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
35
UNITED NATIONS TREATIES
38
(I) CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
38
(II) WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ORGANIZATION
39
CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: INTERNATIONAL REGIME ON ACCESS
AND BENEFIT SHARING
39
WIPO INTERGOVERNMENTAL COMMITTEE ON GENETIC RESOURCES, TRADITIONAL
KNOWLEDGE AND FOLKLORE (IGC)
41
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES FOR ETHNOBIOLOGISTS
43
REFERENCES
47
Ethical questions in ethnobiology and other fields that engage communities or draw on
community knowledge as the focus of study are some of the most difficult and intractable
considerations researchers may face in their careers. Difficulties can arise from several
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
27
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Ethics in Ethnobiology
directions, such as differing principles and values, conflicting obligations, insufficient
understandings, unmet expectations, and the general complexity of working in real-world
situations. Dominating all of these considerations is that, like anthropology, in ethnobiology
“the subject of study stares back”.
A well known context for raising ethical issues in ethnobiology is the practice of bioprospecting based on traditional knowledge1 of Indigenous and local peoples.2 Over the
last couple of decades, traditional knowledge related to biological diversity and genetic
resources has been sought after by government, academic and industrial researchers to identify leads for the development of new drugs, healthcare products, health foods, and other
useful consumer goods. Particularly when commercial exploitation is involved, bioprospecting and other acts of taking and using traditional knowledge beyond the cultural context
where it originated have become increasingly complex and contested on both ethical and
legal grounds. A spectrum of views exists. At the extremes, proponents (largely within academe, government, and the private sector) argue that scientific validation and exploitation of
traditional knowledge related to biodiversity and genetic resources will bring prestige and
economic opportunities to Indigenous and local communities and/or national governments
of “developing” countries, offer new products and other advancements to wider society, and
create incentives for the conservation of disappearing ecosystems. Opponents argue that
knowledge and resources are being “stolen” from Indigenous and local communities (i.e.,
biopiracy), eroding their cultures and the ecosystems upon which they depend, interfering
with cultural responsibilities (e.g., to past and future generations), and undermining
Indigenous rights to traditional resources, intellectual property, and biocultural heritage
(Bannister and Solomon 2009a). As will be discussed later in this chapter, the complex of
ethical, legal, political, and ecological issues revolving around the use, misuse, and commodification of traditional knowledge was and continues to be a key catalyst in the development
of ethical guidance for ethnobiologists worldwide.
This chapter first provides historical background on applied ethics and describes the
emergence of ethical standards within the field of ethnobiology. It then focuses on the current international policy context for ethical and related legal issues raised and perpetuated by
biocultural research in ethnobiology. It concludes with a summary of contemporary issues
and suggestions that today’s ethnobiologists and others working in a biocultural context
arguably have an ethical obligation to become informed about and consider carefully in
negotiating the many potential dilemmas and sensitivities of working with traditional knowledge and associated living cultural heritage.
INTRODUCTION
In the simplest sense, ethics is how we treat one another. The word ethics comes from
the Greek work ethos. Earliest uses were geographic, referring to an “accustomed
place” or abodes of animals, plants, and men (Skeat 1963). The idea of ethos as a place
or local environment to which one was accustomed came to embrace the local customs
1
There is no single agreed definition of traditional knowledge and it is beyond the scope of this chapter to enter into
the longstanding debate on a definition. The term refers generally to the knowledge, traditions and innovations of
Indigenous and local peoples, and is used here in accordance with common usage in international environmental law
(e.g., Convention on Biological Diversity).
2
As discussed subsequently, the term “Indigenous and local peoples” has no single agreed definition. In this chapter
the term is used in accordance with international human rights law (e.g., ILO 169).
Introduction
29
and habits, or mores, of places. In other words, the concept shifted from describing the
character of a place to the moral character of the people inhabiting that place (Liddell and
Scott 1940).
Today, ethics has several meanings. It is used as a synonym for morality, wherein morality is seen as largely inherent in cultures and societies. For example, “do not harm others”
and “do not lie” are part of the set of moral standards shared by most members of a culture or
society, referred to as “common morality”. The relationship of ethics to morality is debated
by philosophers, some treating both as equivalent terms coming from the same root words
for “custom”, others figuring ethics as a subset of morality, and still others seeing morality as
a subset of the broad ethical question of “How should I live?” (Downie 2005; Williams
1985). Ethics is also an academic field of inquiry within philosophy that subjects commonly
accepted moral beliefs and customs to rational critique. Philosophers have elaborated numerous ethical theories that provide frameworks for evaluation of moral judgments, moral character, and acceptability of actions.
More generally, ethics can be thought of as inquiry into moral decision making which
attempts to sort out right and wrong, benefits and harms of human action (and inaction),
and moral obligations to others. Ethics, in this sense, is about seeing problems and enacting mechanisms, such as frameworks of principles and guidelines, to allow address of
those problems.
When there is no law at risk of being broken, most people tend to weigh their actions
under certain circumstances and in light of potential outcomes. An ethical dilemma
occurs when it is not clear what we ought to do in a given situation, such as when negative
consequences result from seemingly ethical actions; when actions are inconsistent with
one’s moral or religious beliefs; or when there is a sense of conflicting obligations to do
the right thing.
General scientific ethics and standards for responsible research conduct are well established, largely defining and perpetuating the institution of science, especially as an academic
endeavor. These fundamental principles and their implementation include:
†
Reproducibility and scientific validity, which rely on defined methods for experimentation and treatment of data;
†
The integrity of the scientific process, which requires avoiding bias and conflicts of
interest;
The quality of science, which depends on sharing knowledge through publication and
openness;
Proper attribution in citing other’s work and in determining authorship, which are
essential mechanisms for credit and accountability; and
Ethical treatment of human participants in research (National Academy of Sciences
1995).
†
†
†
Unintentional errors or negligence in the above are largely mediated by mechanisms
such as peer review, while scientific misconduct, particularly deception (i.e., fabrication,
falsification, or plagiarism), is seen as antithetical to scientific values, with severe
consequences.
General scientific ethics are built upon the pursuit of knowledge as a fundamental
value. They go beyond common morality, but do not provide any contextual guidance for
researchers within their field of specialty. This may be adequate for some sciences but not
for others. An additional layer of ethics is particularly important for research that is directly
engaged with the social world, where unintended consequences may arise as result of
30
Chapter 3
Ethics in Ethnobiology
people, communities, or cultures being subjected to a focused inquiry. Likewise, there are
ethical considerations (e.g., access, species conservation) in studying the biological
world. Ethnobiology, as a discipline that focuses on the cultural and biological interface,
requires a comprehensive and integrated assessment of ethics applied to both the social
and biological realms.
HISTORY OF RESEARCH ETHICS AS RELATED
TO ETHNOBIOLOGY
Ethics emerged as an applied academic discipline in the 1960s and 1970s as academics and
professionals from a variety of backgrounds began to question some of the assumptions of
their disciplines in the face of new observations and some deeply troubling revelations, particularly relating to technological advancement, sustainable development, human and
environmental health, and human rights. Some of these concerns included accelerated technological change and threats from technology (e.g., nuclear armaments, Three Mile Island),
and massive expansion of industry and pollution based on advances in science [e.g., Rachel
Carson’s (1962) Silent Spring], including critique of the Green Revolution (Brush 1992;
Clawson and Hoy 1979; Conway and Barbier 1990; Shiva 1989). Anthropologists, geographers, development practitioners and others in the 1970s and 1980s called into question
many of the assumptions of dominant development models of the time, which focused
on economic and technological development (Blunt and Warren 1996; Chambers 1979;
Chambers et al. 1989; Escobar 1991; Johannes 1978; Peluso 1992). Their studies uncovered
the persistence, resilience, and fundamental importance of contributions of traditional
knowledge, technologies, and lifestyles to human development, wellbeing and livelihoods.
A common theme was that the dominant development models failed to take into account
market externalities (or market failures) and distributive justice. Market externalities occur
when there are spillover impacts of economic transactions onto others who are not directly
involved in the transactions. Externalities may be either positive, such as when others may
benefit from the wildlife that are maintained in intact habitat on private lands, or negative,
such as when pollution created in the manufacture of consumer goods drifts across borders
to harm others who neither manufactured, consumed, or otherwise benefitted from the transaction. These negative spillovers created ethical problems related to the unequal distribution
of both the benefits and the harms of development, known as distributive justice problems.
Another set of disturbing events was the uncovering of secret histories of medical and
military experimentation on humans, including among others: (i) the Tuskegee Syphilis
Study (1932 – 1972), which charted the effects over 40 years of untreated syphilis on
males of African-American descent, many of whom were recruited for the study and intentionally infected with syphilis without their knowledge, then denied treatment based on their
participation (Jones 1981; Tuskegee University 2010); and (ii) atrocious human experimentation on concentration camp prisoners in Nazi Germany during the 1940s in World War II,
leading to the Nuremburg Doctors Trial and a judgment by the war crimes tribunal which
established a new standard for ethical medical experimentation on humans that became
accepted worldwide, called the Nuremburg Code (Mitscherlich and Mielke 1949). Both
the Tuskegee and Nuremburg cases heavily influenced the development of international
standards for biomedical research. Key ethical principles included voluntary informed consent of the participant, weighing of risk against expected benefit, and ensuring participants
can withdraw from a study without consequence. These core principles have been elaborated
on and expanded over the last couple of decades and are still embodied in contemporary
History of Research Ethics as Related to Ethnobiology
31
ethical standards for all research involving humans in north America, including the Belmont
Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research
in the United States (National Commission 1979) and, in Canada, the Tri-Council Policy
Statement: Ethical Guidance for Research Involving Humans (CIHR et al. 1998) as well
as the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) Guidelines for Health Research
Involving Aboriginal People (CIHR 2007). An extensively revised second edition of the
Tri-Council Policy Statement is anticipated by early 2011, containing two new sections
highly relevant to ethnobiology on Aboriginal Research and Qualitative Research.
An additional influence on contemporary research ethics is the controversy that emerged
over the alleged role of anthropologists in gathering military intelligence under the guise
of social sciences research during wartime, such as Project Camelot in Chile (1964) and
the Vietnam War (1955– 1975). The issues raised by these controversies put social science
research under public scrutiny and influenced the eventual development of a Code of Ethics
by the American Anthropological Association (1998) to provide guidelines for making ethical choices within the complex situations within which anthropologists may be conducting
their work (Hill 1998).
Following this period, ethics increasingly referred to codified standards of behavior
for researchers and professionals (e.g., biomedical ethics, environmental ethics, legal
ethics, human research ethics, animal care ethics), which began to emerge as codes of
ethics, codes of conduct, and research protocols of various forms. Today a vast amount
and diversity of ethical guidance exists and continues to be developed by academic societies
and professional associations, non-governmental organizations, Indigenous organizations,
and Indigenous and local communities, as these groups increasingly seek to clarify their
ethical stances and codify guidance to others with the intent of fostering ethical, equitable,
and productive working relationships.3
Another important strand in the historical evolution of ethical standards for ethnobiology is the Indigenous rights movements of the 1970s. While the first organized international movements of Indigenous peoples date back to around 1900 in North America
and Scandinavia, more stable international networks came much later, with the most dramatic gains in institutionalizing Indigenous rights related to biocultural knowledge in the
international arena occurring over the last couple of decades. The first international standard
specifically devoted to Indigenous rights was the International Labor Organization’s
(ILO) Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 169 (adopted in 1957 and revised in
1989). While ILO 169 is considered to be limited in scope, it continues to be a key international legal instrument on Indigenous rights to self-determination, cultural and spiritual
values, practices, and institutions (discussed in a later section). The most recent advancements include the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
(General Assembly 2007) and the establishment of a Permanent Forum on Indigenous
Issues in 2000. The Declaration addresses the rights of Indigenous peoples in respect
3
Many diverse examples exist and are available online, ranging from codes of ethics of academic and professional
societies (e.g., Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Association 1998; Guidelines of Professional Ethics
of the Society for Economic Botany 1995; International Society of Ethnobiology 2006), to research guidelines and
protocols developed by Indigenous communities (e.g., Akwesasne Good Mind Protocol 1995; Mi’kmaq Research
Principles and Protocols 2000; Protocols and Principles for Conducting Research in a Nuu-Chah-nulth Context
2004; Six Nations Council Ethics Committee Protocol), to ethical codes and guidelines developed by
Indigenous organizations for projects involving Indigenous peoples (e.g., Alaska Federation of Natives
Guidelines for Research 1993; Traditional Knowledge Research Guidelines: A Guide for Researchers in the
Yukon 2000), to name only a few.
32
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Ethics in Ethnobiology
of self-determination, culture and language, land and resources, environment and development, intellectual and cultural property, Indigenous law and treaties, and agreements with
governments, among other things. The Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues was established by the United Nations Social and Economic Council to serve as an advisory body
to the Council on Indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture,
the environment, education, health, and human rights (Bannister and Solomon 2009b;
UNPFII website).
Within international Indigenous rights instruments, protection of traditional knowledge
is viewed as integrally linked to self-determination, since knowledge appropriation and
commodification tend to be viewed broadly as related to human and land rights, as well
as potential involving intellectual property and cultural heritage rights. It is important to
note, however, that framing traditional knowledge as intellectual property is more a reflection of Eurocentric institutions than of Indigenous peoples. For many Indigenous peoples,
“protection” of their traditional knowledge systems within an intellectual property legal
framework is an alien concept. Indeed, this apparent contradiction inspired the promotion
of “traditional resource rights” by the late Darrell Addison Posey and colleagues (Posey
and Dutfield 1996) as an integrated rights concept that is guided by human rights principles
and recognizes the inextricable links between cultural and biological diversity.
By the early 1990s, largely stimulated by the intensive bioprospecting efforts of
academic – industrial partnerships and resulting claims of biopiracy, legal protection of traditional knowledge, and issues of permission, credit and financial compensation for use of
traditional knowledge became topics of contentious international debate at the intersection
of international environmental and human rights law, and launched a concerted effort by
the International Society of Ethnobiology to develop ethical guidance for ethnobiologists
(Bannister and Solomon 2009a).
ETHNOBIOLOGICAL ETHICS AND THE INTERNATIONAL
SOCIETY OF ETHNOBIOLOGY
In 1988 the First International Congress of Ethnobiology was organized in Belém, Brazil
by the late Darrell A. Posey and colleagues. Posey, who had started his career focusing
on ethnoentomology and traditional resource management by the Kayapó of Brazil, had
come to see the value of traditional knowledge and resource management systems as crucial
to implementing the emerging concept of sustainable development. He also recognized the
need for a coming together of diverse actors to tackle the complex and pressing issues at
stake. The congress resulted in the founding of the International Society of Ethnobiology
(ISE), which was established as an umbrella organization through which scientists, environmentalists, and Indigenous peoples could work together to protect the world’s endangered
biological and cultural diversity.
At the time of Posey’s work, the Kayapó were, and continue to be, galvanized in
struggles against government projects to build large hydroelectric dams along the Xingu
River and other rivers in the Amazon Basin. Many Indigenous peoples at the time were
also protesting the use of their traditional knowledge and cultural resources without their
permission and without compensation. Posey advocated going beyond ethical obligations
set out by research institutions and academic societies at the time to include issues related
to human rights. The 600 delegates from 35 countries, including representatives from 16
Indigenous organizations who participated in the first Congress joined together in the
Ethnobiological Ethics and the International Society of Ethnobiology
33
Declaration of Belém, supporting the notion that “all other inalienable human rights be
recognized and guaranteed, including cultural and linguistic identity” (International
Society of Ethnobiology 1988; Article 3).
The Declaration of Belém also explicitly recognizes the continuing destruction of
ecosystems throughout the world, and its devastating biological and human implications.
Recognizing that the knowledge underlying the resource management practices of the
world’s Indigenous peoples is directly tied to the maintenance of biological diversity, the
Declaration of Belém underscores the point that loss of traditional knowledge is inextricably
linked to loss of biological diversity and vice versa. The Declaration of Belém was the
first international declaration to call for mechanisms to be established to recognize
and consult with Indigenous specialists as proper authorities in all activities affecting
them, their resources, and their environments, and that procedures be developed to compensate Indigenous peoples for use of their knowledge and their biological resources
(ISE website).
Throughout the rest of his career, Posey continued to press for the recognition of
Indigenous rights, challenging ethnobiologists to develop higher levels of awareness and
commitment to respect and protect Indigenous rights and cosmologies in research. Recognizing the role of ethnobiologists as intermediaries between scientific and Indigenous
cultures, and how academic data often flow into the private sector for commercial purposes,
Posey argued that a lack of relationship between researchers and holders of traditional
knowledge can facilitate not only commodification of the knowledge but of the sacred:
“the plant, animal, or crystal that an ethnopharmacologist wants to collect may, in fact,
encompass, contain, or even be the manifestation of an ancestral spirit—even the healer’s
grandmother” (Posey 2002).
Posey’s work catalyzed a new wave of intellectual and political debate on the ethics
of research related to biocultural diversity, and laid the foundation for reconceptualizing
issues of appropriation of traditional knowledge, from local to international levels.
Using the Declaration of Belém as a foundational set of principles, Posey established
an Ethics Committee under the ISE in 1992 with a specific mandate to develop a Code
of Conduct for the Society. Until his death in 2001, Posey led an extensive process of
open hearings, working sessions, discussion, and debate involving hundreds of people
from all parts of the world and including Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, professionals, activists and practitioners. Over a decade later, after extensive drafting and
redrafting that also involved a thorough assessment of many existing codes, guidelines,
and research protocols as well as key issues arising within relevant international policy
fora, the final version of the ISE Code of Ethics was unanimously adopted by the ISE
membership at the Tenth International Congress of Ethnobiology in Chiang Rai,
Thailand in 2006 (with an amendment in 2008 to include an Executive Summary and
Glossary of Terms).
The ISE Code of Ethics consists of a preamble, purpose, 17 principles, and 12 practical
guidelines. It is founded on the value of “mindfulness”, described as “a continual willingness
to evaluate one’s own understandings, actions, and responsibilities to others” (ISE 2006).
The ISE Code of Ethics is characterized by a number of progressive principles that
expand on contemporary research ethics standards and draw on international human
rights and environmental law in a way consistent with Posey’s visionary direction.
†
Indigenous prior proprietary rights and cultural responsibilities are explicitly
acknowledged.
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†
Active community participation in all stages of research from inception to implementation and interpretation are encouraged.
†
The concept of “educated prior informed consent” is promoted, which recognizes
informed consent not only as an ongoing process but as requiring an educative component that employs bilingual and intercultural education methods and tools to ensure
understanding by all parties involved.
The precautionary principle is supported through promoting proactive, anticipatory
action to identify and to prevent biological or cultural harms resulting from research
activities or outcomes.
Researchers are expected to incorporate reciprocity, mutual benefit, and equitable
sharing in ways that are culturally appropriate and consistent with the wishes of the
community involved.
Research is viewed as a cycle of continuous and ongoing communication and interaction, which should not be initiated unless there is reasonable assurance that all
stages can be completed.
Supporting Indigenous communities in undertaking their own research based on their
own epistemologies and methodologies is a priority.
The importance is underscored of acknowledgement and due credit in accordance
with community preferences in all agreed outcomes (e.g., publications and educational materials) including co-authorship when appropriate, and extending equally
to secondary or downstream uses and applications such that researchers will ensure
that connections to original sources of knowledge and resources are maintained in
the public record.
Research is expected to be conducted in the local language wherever possible, which
may involve language fluency or employment of interpreters.
Researchers are also expected to have a working understanding of the local context
prior to entering into research relationships with a community, which includes knowledge of and willingness to comply with local governance systems, cultural laws and
protocols, social customs, and etiquette (above list excerpted from Bannister and
Solomon 2009a: 157– 158).
†
†
†
†
†
†
†
The principles underscore additional layers of duty that compel researchers to be concerned
about the dignity and autonomy of individuals, as well as that of the communities involved
and affected. Ethical duty is also is extended beyond humans to include the surrounding
environment upon which humans depend, acknowledging rights and obligations to both
living and non-living, across past, present, and future.
Importantly, the ISE Code of Ethics represents a widely accepted standard internationally, which is explicitly meant to support and enable but not supersede community-level
processes and structures:
This Code of Ethics recognizes and honors traditional and customary laws, protocols, and
methodologies extant within the communities where collaborative research is proposed. It should
enable but not over-ride such community-level processes and decision-making structures. It
should facilitate the development of community-centered, mutually-negotiated research agreements that serve to strengthen community goals.
ISE 2006: Purpose
International Law and Policy Debates and Negotiations
35
The ISE Code of Ethics offers guidance on key issues that are under debate in international law and policy fora in relation to appropriation of traditional knowledge. In particular, these include prior informed consent (PIC), mutually agreed terms (MAT) including
benefit sharing, capacity-building, recognition of customary laws, and underscoring the
vital role of community research protocols in changing research practice, including shifting the power dynamics of decision making and likely requiring more formal processes and agreements to lay out the goals and terms of research as mutually defined with
source communities and traditional knowledge holders. This will be discussed in a subsequent section.
INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POLICY DEBATES
AND NEGOTIATIONS
Key Concepts, Terms and Definitions
As noted previously, over the past quarter-century Indigenous peoples and local communities have not only been of increasing interest to anthropologists and others, but also
have become the subject of international law. From the founding of the League of
Nations in 1920, and continuing with the founding of the United Nations in 1945, groups
began petitioning the international legal system to recognize their human and political
rights, including the political right to self-determination (Mauro and Hardison 2000).
The right to political self-determination for groups within national boundaries is
recognized in many countries of the world. These groups go by many names, including
tribes, Indigenous, local community, Aboriginal, Native, and First Nation. There is no
single concise definition for any of these terms, and there exist numerous legal and academic
treatments. As the international legal system took up this issue and began to address
its complexities, it settled on the term “Indigenous” as a common way to refer to
these groups.
The most common and influential definition of Indigenous is found in ILO’s Indigenous
and Tribal Peoples Convention 169 (ILO 169), originally adopted in 1957 and revised in
1989. ILO 169 recognizes tribal and Indigenous groups as distinct peoples. It does not
define Indigenous and tribal peoples, instead providing a list of elements to guide nation
states in their identification. Elements common to both tribal peoples and Indigenous
peoples are that they possess: (i) traditional life styles; (ii) a culture and way of life different
from the other segments of the national population, for example, in their ways of making a
living, language, customs; and (iii) their own social organization and traditional customs and
laws (ILO 2003). Additionally, Indigenous peoples are those who have been living in historical continuity in a certain area, or before others “invaded” the area (ILO 2003). ILO
169 considers self-identification and the collective desire to remain as distinct peoples to
be the leading criteria.
The use of plural “peoples” is critical and the designation was hard fought internationally by Indigenous groups and others. In the United Nations system, all nation states are
considered to be ruling bodies that collectively represent their peoples, and which possess sovereignty, self-determination, and the right to govern and set rules for their citizens.
A sovereign has the power to grant, withhold, and distribute rights among citizens.
Governments commonly refer to this process as balancing rights among stakeholders. A
sovereign does not have the right to govern or make laws for other peoples, or to balance
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the rights of their citizens against citizens residing in other countries. Sovereigns make
agreements on behalf of their peoples in a number of different ways, including declarations,
agreements, conventions, and treaties. Declarations are aspirational documents, although
they may contain elements of codified and customary international law, and set a direction
for the elaboration of international law over the long term. Agreements are binding documents made between two or more states, usually involving a narrow issue. Conventions
and treaties are highly formal, larger scale agreements involving many issues. Through
these different instruments, sovereigns come to agree on cooperative actions and voluntarily
limit the exercise of their sovereign powers. Sometimes these limits are considered to be universally binding, or erga omnes norms (Latin: “applying to all”), such as laws related to
human rights (e.g., the prohibition against genocide). At other times, any limits are seen
as strategic and voluntary.
Two other distinctions are helpful in understanding international law. The first is the distinction between “soft law” and “hard law”. These occur on a continuum, and treaties usually
contain elements that cover the whole spectrum. Soft laws are measures (e.g., policy statements, principles, guidelines), aspirations which those agreeing to a treaty (the “parties”)
have agreed to move towards in a process of progressive implementation. Hard law
takes the form of binding the parties to specific actions, which they agree to implement in
a reasonable amount of time after ratifying the treaty. These actions may be accompanied
by sanctions or penalties.
The importance of this discussion for ethnobiologists is the observation that a large percentage of the groups and individuals informing ethnobiological research are now the subject of international law, and are increasingly acknowledged to possess considerable political
rights to self-determination. The international system is setting out principles that lead
national governments to take measures in their national legal systems to recognize and
implement these rights. Indigenous rights to lands, waters, sacred places, biodiversity, genetic resources, and traditional knowledge are increasingly being recognized in national constitutions, statutes, agreements, policy, administrative rulings, memoranda, executive orders,
statements of understanding, protocols, and other instruments as part of a national hard law
and soft law.
The recognition of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination is well advanced in
a number of nations, particularly in those nations known as settler states, in which there
was a clear initiation of a phase of colonization that separated prior inhabitants from
the colonizers, such as in Latin America and Caribbean, Australia, Canada, New Zealand,
and the United States. In New Zealand, the United States, and some of Canada, the
colonizers signed treaties with the inhabitants, an instrument used for agreements
between nations.
These developments provide a rich ground for analysis from an ethnological point of
view. At the international level, the legal system has begun to construct a legal regime
that applies the concept of Indigenous to an extremely diverse group of cultures with different histories and forms of political, social, and economic organization—estimated at over
10,000 distinct groups, with 370 million people in 70 countries (UNPFII 2010). Some of
these peoples are nomadic, some are dispersed in tropical forests with little political organization, while others, such as the Quechua and Aymara in the Andes, number in the millions.
Many governments of Africa, however, do not recognize Indigenous peoples, but instead
refer to “local communities”. In these governments’ view, they are “all Indigenous to
Africa” (Henriksen 2008).
The legal movements described above draw from explicit principles contained in
existing international legal instruments, known as international customary law. They are
International Law and Policy Debates and Negotiations
37
also entering new ground where there is little precedence. Where the law is confronted
by new situations, it turns to create sui generis law (Latin: “of its own kind”), or law that
is unique. Much of United Nations human rights law, as well as national law in modern
democracies, focuses on the rights of individuals. In contrast, Indigenous rights are
characterized as collective rights. Anthropologists have pointed to the complex nature of
collective systems, and have developed a number of concepts to describe them, such
as commons, common property systems, communal systems, and collective resource
management systems. Although there is no single Indigenous position on these
concepts, they are disputed by some Indigenous activists, academics, politicians, and communities, who use counter-naming strategies to develop and apply their own concepts and
epistemologies.
To cite one example, some Indigenous scholars reject the use of the terms cultural property and cultural resources. They believe these concepts reflect the materialism of the West,
which isolates living processes and relationships in nature that have a spiritual basis to create
material objects that can be commodified, alienated, dispassionately managed, privatized,
and sold in the market (Farhata 2008). One initiative at the international level attempts
to introduce the concept of collective bio-cultural heritage, which refers to the holistic
dimension of traditional knowledge inseparable from nature, and is based on balance,
reciprocity, and duality (Swiderska 2008). Along with other Indigenous representatives,
these authors reject the ability of existing Western legal systems, such as the intellectual
property rights (IPR) system, to protect their rights, lands and heritage. Other Indigenous
scholars disagree, believing that Indigenous epistemology can find a path to expression
and that, with proper modification and the elaboration of sui generis law, protections can
be found within Western legal systems (Carpenter et al. 2009).
It is for the reader to pursue the details of the arguments set out above and draw
his/her own conclusions—the purpose here is not to settle the disputes, but to point
out that the elaboration of a collective rights regime that can effectively address the concerns of millions of different Indigenous peoples involves some very difficult conversations between groups with very different ideologies, orientations and worldviews,
and will remain sites of cultural contestation. These struggles do not only involve
Indigenous peoples against the state. They also involve struggles among Indigenous peoples
themselves over the future of their societies, and with those who make claims of Indigeneity
in an attempt to capture the rights to resources, lands, and protections offered by the new
laws (Li 2010).
International treaties are negotiated in diplomatic contexts. They may take decades
to negotiate. They are, by their nature, extremely conservative and abstract processes.
Because they intend to promote or establish law, they have to work within the constraint
of developing and using concepts that can be understood by all of the state representatives
and be accepted by consensus. Consensus in this case is not majority vote, but a process
where principles, language, and commitments are only accepted when no one objects.
Because of this, international law often remains at the level of principles and guidelines,
and leaves out much of the ethnographically rich detail of laws at the national and local
level. International law is not a “magic bullet” that can slay bad actors on the international
stage by laying out detailed instructions on rightful behavior and force states into compliance. A few treaties have criminal provisions that allow for sanctions and penalties.
More often, treaties work by promoting the development of national laws that fulfill their
intentions. Once a treaty is ratified, much work must still occur domestically, and those engaging in these processes must be prepared to work at multiple levels with strategies appropriate for each case.
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United Nations Treaties
There are few treaties that have any detailed provisions related to traditional knowledge
and biological resources. After more than 25 years of negotiation, the United Nations
General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples (UNDRIP) on 13 September 2007 in a pivotal moment for the recognition of the
collective rights of self-determination of millions of marginalized peoples. In 41 articles,
the Declaration sets out a broad range of rights to possess, control, participate, and make
decisions over diverse sectors such as education, spirituality, traditional knowledge,
lands, waters, and genetic resources; rights to be free of coercion, dispossession, or eviction;
and to have these rights recognized by the wider societies in which they are embedded.
Although the Declaration is the touchstone of principles for nations to carry into
national laws, policies, and ethical guidelines, it is not a treaty. Two treaties are currently
being negotiated (as of August 2010), that if completed will likely contain internationally
binding commitments that will affect ethnobiological research, as they contain provisions
related to traditional knowledge, biodiversity, and genetic resources:
(i) Convention on Biological Diversity
The Diversity (CBD) treaty entered into force in 1993. The three main objectives of this convention are: (a) conservation of biological diversity; (b) sustainable use of its components;
and (c) fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic
resources. It was the first international treaty to contain substantial provisions relating to
Indigenous peoples, containing Article 8( j), which states:
Subject to national legislation, respect, preserve and maintain knowledge, innovations and
practices of Indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for
the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and promote their wider application
with the approval and involvement of the holders of such knowledge, innovations and
practices and encourage the equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of
such knowledge innovations and practices.
United Nations Environment Program 1993
In 2000 the CBD began negotiating the International Regime on Access and Benefit
Sharing (ABS), scheduled to be completed by October 2010. The draft treaty addresses
issues specifically related to genetic resources, and includes legal provisions on traditional
knowledge and associated genetic resources. In addition, states adopted the voluntary
Bonn Guidelines on Access to Genetic Resources and Fair and Equitable Sharing of
the Benefits Arising out of their Utilization (Bonn Guidelines), a precursor to the ABS,
but which still remains a useful source of measures that can be adopted nationally and
locally (SCBD 2002). The Convention is also considering the adoption of the
Tkarihwaié:ri Ethical Code of Conduct on Respect for the Cultural and Intellectual
Heritage of Indigenous and Local Communities Relevant for the Conservation and
Sustainable Use of Biodiversity (Tkarihwaié:ri is taken from the Mohawk, and means
the “proper way”; SCBD 2009). These ethical guidelines are designed to work in the
same way as the Bonn Guidelines, to provide a set of ethical principles for collaborating
with Indigenous peoples that can shape both the law and ethical climate of nations. The
CBD has also adopted the Akwe: Kon Voluntary Guidelines for the Conduct of
Cultural, Environmental and Social Assessments Regarding Developments Proposed to
Take Place on, or Which are Likely to Impact on, Sacred Sites and on Lands and
Convention on Biological Diversity
39
Waters Traditionally Occupied or Used by Indigenous and Local Communities (Akwe:
Kon Voluntary Guidelines).
(ii) World Intellectual Property Organization
In 2000, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) set up the InterGovernmental Committee on Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge, and Folklore
(IGC) to explore the relationship of the intellectual property system to the intangible heritage
and associated resources and expressions of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
In 2009 they began negotiating a potentially internationally binding treaty targeted to be
completed by 2012.
CONVENTION ON BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY: INTERNATIONAL
REGIME ON ACCESS AND BENEFIT SHARING
The CBD International Regime on ABS is looking at issues related to the international trade
in genetic resources. In the past, the developed countries of the North have often been
accused of biopiracy, or of taking genetic resources freely from their source locations in
developing countries without permission and/or compensation. Ethnobiologists have
been accused by Indigenous peoples and activists of directly and indirectly facilitating
this kind of unfair misappropriation (Posey and Dutfield 1996). Biotechnology corporations
have developed natural products based on ethnobotanical leads and the use of genetic
resources derived from Indigenous peoples without permission or compensation
(Kloppenburg 1991). The issue of what precisely constitutes biopiracy is complex (for a
recent in-depth treatment, see Robinson 2010).
In relation to Indigenous peoples, the ABS Regime can be broken into two parts—issues
related to access to traditional knowledge and associated resources, and issues related to
benefit sharing once traditional knowledge or genetic resources have been obtained.
Article 15 of the CBD asserts that the states are sovereign over their natural resources,
such that any other state that wishes to access them must first obtain permission, or prior
informed consent from the sovereign. State sovereignty over genetic resources was a dramatic reversal of an earlier principle of international law, that is, that genetic resources
formed a part of the common heritage of humankind. Under Article 15, sharing is based
on the consent of both parties to the terms of the sharing agreement, or mutually agreed
terms. Both PIC and MAT ensure that an agreement must be made before genetic resources
can be obtained and used, and thus set the conditions for benefit sharing.
Article 15 also recognizes rights to ABS for Indigenous and local communities, but is
not specific as to how these rights will be implemented. The ABS Regime addresses this in
more detail. While the ABS Regime had not been finalized at the time of writing, several
observations can be made relating to the practice of ethnobiology. As noted, the CBD stipulates that states are sovereign over genetic resources. This is disputed by many Indigenous
peoples, who believe the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and other international law support a claim to their own sovereign rights to genetic resources.
The ABS Regime does contemplate Indigenous and local community rights over genetic resources, but these rights are subject to national legislation. The ABS Regime, therefore, will most likely only give guidance in this regard, and leave it to the states to decide
how to take that guidance. The scope may be limited only to genetic resources occurring
directly on Indigenous territories (i.e., not yet collected), or include genetic resources held
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in museums, collections, seed banks, or gene banks. Even if Indigenous peoples fail to
gain recognition of their sovereign rights, or if the scope is limited, they will likely increasingly have recognized rights to control access to some subset of national genetic resources in
most cases.
The scope of rights for traditional knowledge related to the conservation and sustainable
use of biodiversity is also still under debate. Indigenous peoples have consistently argued
that in their cosmovision, traditional knowledge and genetic resources cannot be separated,
and have defended language that always refers to “rights to traditional knowledge and associated genetic resources” combined. Many states have tried to limit their obligations only to
traditional knowledge, with the majority of the control over access to genetic resources
remaining vested in the state.
Despite Indigenous cosmovision, it is common for traditional knowledge and genetic
resources to be considered separately. There are four common permutations of how traditional knowledge and genetic resources are encountered, each raising different sets of
issues: (i) undisclosed traditional knowledge held within a group, with genetic resources
acquired outside legal territories; (ii) disclosed traditional knowledge found away from
Indigenous territories (e.g., in books, databases, the minds of neighbors) with genetic
resources acquired on the territories; (iii) both disclosed traditional knowledge and associated genetic resources acquired away from Indigenous territories; and (iv) disclosed
traditional knowledge found away from Indigenous territories, and genetic resources
acquired on them.
Each scenario presents difficult ethical and legal issues. For example, how does one
identify rights holders to traditional knowledge that is widely circulated? Are there rights
to control access and/or derive benefits? In the Western system, once knowledge has
been disclosed publically, it begins a journey towards the public domain, in which others
may have free access to the knowledge without any obligations to the original holders.
This may not be consistent with the belief of the knowledge holders themselves, who
often hold that there are spiritual values and social and spiritual obligations that are inextricably linked to the use of the knowledge, as well as harms that may result from misuse
(Tulalip Tribes 2003).
There is also the issue of “embodied traditional knowledge”. Economists and intellectual property lawyers have referred to the knowledge embodied in technology—the
structure of technological innovations contains information about the knowledge that
went into its construction. National and international technology law protects innovators
against reverse engineering or the unauthorized extraction of such knowledge through
inference from design. Indigenous peoples, for example through countless generations of
selection and breeding, have also embodied their traditional knowledge in the breeding of
plants and animals and the creation of biocultural landscapes. To the extent that their
labor has shaped the pool of genetic resources, questions arise about rights to control
access and/or share in the benefits of their use. The current ABS Regime acknowledges
such embodied traditional knowledge, but only provides a recommendation that benefits
should be shared.
The two strongest outcomes from the ABS Regime are likely to be related to the issue
of PIC and the recognition of the importance of customary law in determining conditions
of both access and benefit sharing. In Article 15 of the CBD, PIC refers to a governmentto-government relationship in which one government must obtain legal consent from a delegated authority of another state before an action is started. Governments create specific
offices with decision-making authority to which those wishing to access genetic resources
apply, and the agencies are empowered to give an unambiguous reply to accept or deny
WIPO Intergovernmental Committee
41
access, and provide the terms of access if it is given. The ABS Regime will likely recognize
that Indigenous and local communities also have the right to PIC for currently undisclosed
traditional knowledge. The scope of rights to disclosed traditional knowledge and associated
genetic resources is still under negotiation, but some states are expected to adopt domestic
legislation that requires potential users of traditional knowledge and associated genetic
resources to obtain consent before access and use, regardless of whether the uses are commercial or non-commercial.
Indigenous peoples are also promoting the recognition of customary law by the ABS
Regime. This is important because it is the basis on which Indigenous peoples value and
make decisions on access and benefit sharing related directly to their customs, and beliefs
about proper and improper uses of traditional knowledge and genetic resources, including
the moral, spiritual, and physical consequences of violating those beliefs. Many Indigenous
peoples consider themselves stewards or guardians of the land and other living beings,
based on a model of proprietorship rather than property owners (Carpenter et al. 2009;
Tsosie 2000). They believe it is both a matter of ethics and political self-determination to
directly recognize their right to set the terms and conditions of the use of their knowledge
and genetic resources, and to have their beliefs respected outside of their lands.
The above is difficult to achieve in practice, as even sovereigns cannot directly require
respect of their beliefs or laws from other sovereigns. But it is in the nature of treaties that
sovereigns cross-recognize one another’s laws on the basis of mutual benefit. Such
mutual recognition of national laws, know as comity, is a common outcome of treaties.
Indigenous peoples are asked to recognize the national laws related to non-Indigenous property, and they believe it is part of the right to self-determination, as recognized in the United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to have their legal traditions
respected. The scope of this principle in the ABS Regime is still unclear, but it is recognized
that, at a minimum, Indigenous peoples can embody their beliefs in setting the terms of
access and use of their traditional knowledge and genetic resources according to MAT,
which are consistent with their traditions.
In summary, the ABS Regime is likely to affect ethnobiological research by increasingly recognizing the legal, political, and human rights of Indigenous peoples to varying extents to control access to and the use of their traditional knowledge and associated
genetic resources.
WIPO INTERGOVERNMENTAL COMMITTEE ON
GENETIC RESOURCES, TRADITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND
FOLKLORE (IGC)
Many of the issues raised by the CBD are also raised in treaty negotiations at WIPO.
Indigenous representatives have objected to the negotiations because of their perceptions
of the nature of IPR. Their position is that the rights to Indigenous intangible cultural heritage
arise from their spiritual and political traditions, which are protected through human rights
rather than property rights. As in the discussion of genetic resources, they believe that the
existing intellectual property system cannot be sufficient to protect their rights because
the system is fundamentally based on commercialization, commodification, and alienation
of rights of ownership or guardianship (Sunder 2007). Other Indigenous scholars and representatives are more supportive of the potential for sui generis legal principles to protect
intangible knowledge, genetic resources and tangible expressions, using these negotiations
as an opportunity to correct “flaws” in the current system (Carpenter et al. 2009).
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Both sides agree that there are significant barriers to protection in the current IPR
system. The general theory behind intellectual property law is that people require incentives
to produce innovations. Sovereigns, therefore, grant monopolies for limited periods of time
to innovators, allowing the latter to control and prosper from their innovations. The developers of intellectual property theory proposed limited durations for protection because it
was obvious that if IPR did not expire, knowledge would quickly grow into an impassable
thicket of exclusive property. The concept of the public domain was created as a conceptual
space where intangible creations would become free for anyone to use anywhere without
restriction as part of the common heritage of humankind.
In many intellectual property systems around the world, the monopolies run for about
20 years for patents, and “life plus 70” for copyrights (from the time of production to the
end of the creator’s life, plus 70 years). There are three important exceptions to this rule:
trade marks, trade secrets, and geographical indications, which have indefinite terms of protection. Trade marks, like Coca-ColaTM , are visual symbols that are protected as long as they
are used. Trade secrets, like the formula for Coca-ColaTM , are protected as long as they are
kept secret. Geographical indications are appellations (geographically based names) that are
permanently tied to products from particular groups or regions. If a product advertizes itself
as a Bordeaux wine, it must be produced in the Bordeaux region in France.
The intellectual property system makes certain exceptions to protection. Copyrighted
works only protect the exact expressions contained in the works, but do not protect the information contained in the expression. Users of copyrighted works can, therefore, extract the
information and use it immediately, without having to wait for the copyright to expire
into the public domain. In many countries, fair use laws allow users to extract small amounts
of expressions in texts without have to ask for permission or pay a fee to a copyright holder.
Both of these exceptions are tied to the concept of freedom of expression, a strong democratic ideal and fundamental human right that keeps people free from coercion and oppression. The laws also generally make exceptions for non-commercial, educational, and
reporting uses.
These existing intellectual property law principles can be contrasted with the circulation
and regulation of knowledge, genetic resources, and traditional cultural expressions within
Indigenous communities. Traditional societies can mostly be characterized as having strong
spiritual traditions, which permeate all aspects of their societies (Posey 1999). They do not
generally view their knowledge as “data” or “information”, but often as something that has
its origin and continuing connections to a spiritual domain. Even reference to the “intangible” can misrepresent traditional concepts of knowledge, as many Indigenous peoples
believe knowledge is material and tangible and has existence in the spirit world. There is,
of course, no single description of how Indigenous peoples view and use their knowledge,
and there is a wide spectrum of concepts ranging from the relatively secular and practical to
the highly sacred and secret (Rose 1995).
The idea of the public domain is absent or much diminished in traditional societies
(Gibson 2007; Sunder 2007; Tauli-Corpuz 2005; Tulalip Tribes 2003). Consider the classic
example of a family song where it is sung in public. Although the audience may hear the
song, it is also aware that the song is entrusted to the family, which has the sole proprietary
right to sing it. The use of the song is socially regulated by traditional sanctions, norms and
institutions, or customary law. Under many cultural rules, controls on the use of family songs
are perpetual. Similarly, Indigenous peoples have secret, ritual, or ceremonial practices,
which under their traditions are not to be shared or used outside their appropriate contexts.
Still, much knowledge is not guarded in this way, and may be widely circulated.
Agricultural knowledge and resources such as seeds and tubers are often shared widely
Contemporary Issues for Ethnobiologists
43
within and between communities (Brush 2004). Even in these cases, such sharing is often
accompanied by beliefs about their appropriate uses, and obligations to respect spiritual
and social norms, such as showing reciprocity for shared resources (Matsumura 2006; but
see Brush 2005). Previously shared knowledge raises factual, normative, and strategic
issues. A description of a historical pattern is factual, but that is not, in itself, sufficient to
make it normative. To do so would be to commit the naturalistic fallacy of claiming that
whatever naturally occurs is justified simply by its natural occurrence. Even if agricultural
knowledge has been widely shared, it was historically shared among rural peoples with similar worldviews, which is very different from today’s densely populated, digitally connected,
and technologically advanced world where agricultural knowledge takes on many dimensions that it did not have in the past.
The above leads to strategic considerations of the governance of traditional knowledge.
Different types of knowledge may have different governability. Knowledge about growing
potatoes, for example, can largely be applied only to potatoes. Growing a potato is a demanding task, and occurs in a specific place. If one shares knowledge about growing potatoes with
others, the main way they can use it is to grow potatoes themselves on their own lands. In
primarily subsistence economies, there will likely not be high competition for potato markets, so sharing the knowledge is an example of non-rivalry where another’s use of knowledge or resources does not interfere with one’s own. This is asserted with a caveat. Rivalry
and non-rivalry related to traditional knowledge are applied with the significant assumption
that it only involves the information content of the knowledge. Indigenous peoples who
believe that there are spiritual dimensions of knowledge, that misuse has cosmic and physical impacts, or that knowledge is expressed through sacred breath would evaluate rivalry
and non-rivalry using different criteria.
Traditional agricultural knowledge can be contrasted with knowledge of the uses of wild
living resources. Wild species will generally occur at much lower abundances and have
greater variability. Sharing knowledge about a relatively scarce resource that one has little
control over can lead to rival uses, where others do interfere with one’s own access because
of competition for the same resource. The issue of governability of traditional knowledge
and associated resources, linking life-history characteristics of exploited species and
social-ecological variables, is in its infancy, but is important in understanding strategic
issues in making decisions related to knowledge and resources, particularly in a globalized
world.
The IGC is not expected to finish its work until 2012 at the earliest, and not all
United Nations treaty negotiations are completed. But there is wide recognition that
the current IPR laws are not protecting Indigenous peoples from the exploitation of
their intangible knowledge, or from the improper granting of IPR to products derived
from their resources without permission. One of the current principles under discussion
is to provide an indefinite term of protection to traditional cultural expressions (e.g., art,
dance, music, symbols, patterns) for an indefinite period in a way similar to trade
marks. The protections would last as long as the holders of the traditions persist as
recognizable peoples.
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES FOR ETHNOBIOLOGISTS
The considerations outlined above highlight just a few of the wicked problems posed by
the intellectual property system, access and benefit sharing agreements, and the collection,
dissemination, and use of traditional knowledge. Governments, Indigenous peoples, and
44
Chapter 3
Ethics in Ethnobiology
academics are grappling with many interrelated ethical and legal issues. The United Nations
is not alone in developing laws; a number of governments are developing constitutional provisions or statutes, and some regional organizations (e.g., the Andean Pact among South
American governments) have elaborated (or are elaborating) their own regimes.
Ethnobiologists will face increasing regulation of access and use of traditional knowledge
in the near future.
Academic and scientific commitments are deeply linked to beliefs in freedom of
expression, the common heritage of human kind, and the value of the public domain.
Many ethnobiologists work within the evolutionary tradition, which tells a specific materialistic story about the origin of humankind, its evolution and dispersal across the globe, and
about the diffusion and mixing of knowledge, resources, and cultures. The scientific narratives are well corroborated, and the principles deserve deep respect. However, it must also be
recognized that these narratives can conflict with narratives, beliefs, and principles that are
held just as deeply by Indigenous peoples. The negotiations are occurring at a site of high
contestation between worldviews.
Characterizing Indigenous worldviews in any realistic way is not possible here, but a
common gross generalization is that Indigenous peoples have a collective identity based
on creation stories that tell them where they came from, which ties them to the land. They
often tell of a sacred journey, of creation or emergence in place, or of cosmological
origin. Although there are many accounts that refer to traditional knowledge as an adaptive
system developed by trial and error over millennia, this is not the account given by many
tradition holders (Posey 1999). Although they recognize the role and value of experimentation and innovation, they commonly believe this is based on a deeper reality where
knowledge comes as a gift of the Ancestors, Spirits, or Creator, and may come from
direct communication with beings in a cosmic dimension, in dreams, or in direct conversation with plants and animals. The spiritual nature of this knowledge creates correlative
rights and responsibilities, and sets appropriate uses (Solomon 2004). They are correlative
in the sense that it makes no sense for many Indigenous peoples to talk about rights
without also respecting obligations. This is the basis for the claim that there generally is
no exact equivalent of the public domain in Indigenous cultures, because knowledge
and resources are never unregulated, and always associated with customary laws or
community protocols.
The UNDRIP, the CBD and the IGC all represent a movement to recognize Indigenous
rights and a new pluralism to respect other ways of thinking and being. These efforts are
far from ideal. The dispute over concepts is high. The legal non-Indigenous worldview
has become entrenched from hundreds of international agreements over 100 years, with
long discussions required to come to common understandings of legal terms of 195
United Nations-recognized states.
If a plant processing method has been held within a family “since time immemorial”, is
there any justification under intellectual property law or scientific ethics that could justify its
being appropriated into the public domain, or freely used on the justification of freedom of
expression? Can an exemption be made on the basis of non-commercial research, if there is
a high likelihood that once disclosed in a publication, the knowledge would be unfairly
exploited? And what should be done with knowledge that is already in circulation, recorded
in texts, or housed in databases, that the legal system and most publics consider to already be
in the public domain? Did the transfers of knowledge occur based on a full understanding by
all parties of the consequences of sharing, or on mutually agreed terms? Was the sharing
based on an agreement involving entire communities who made a collective decision to
share their knowledge held in common?
Contemporary Issues for Ethnobiologists
45
One common reason for making traditional knowledge available is that it can defeat
improperly issued patents. For a patent to be valid, it has to be a true invention. If it is
based on something previously known that is part of the public domain (“prior art”), it
cannot be patented. Some have used this reasoning to advocate the widespread development
of databases of traditional knowledge in the public domain (Alexander et al. 2004; Hardison
2005). But defeating patents is only one issue with which Indigenous peoples are
concerned—even non-commercial research may pose ethical and spiritual issues. Patents
concern 20-year monopolies, and defeating them only stops the monopoly, not nonmonopolistic commercial or non-commercial uses. In the Pacific Northwest, for example,
tribes are much less concerned about biopiracy from pharmaceutical companies than
about non-tribal harvesters who harvest scarce cultural resources and leave the traditional
practitioners with little or nothing to perform ceremonies or rituals or for subsistence.
Indigenous peoples have expressed their willingness to share some of their knowledge
for good causes, and even with the politicization of these debates, many still work and will
continue to work with academic researchers. Indigenous peoples generally are not against all
sharing, and there are many reciprocal benefits from this kind of research. They have clearly
expressed the desire to reserve their most sacred traditions to themselves, to require their free,
prior, and informed consent, to have their knowledge protected and to have their customary
laws and community protocols respected. Giving consent will require that all parties understand the terms being used, have a clear understanding of all reasonably known outcomes
and consequences, identify a process through which an authoritative decision can be
made in the face of conflict, and a agree on a method of fair and culturally acceptable conflict
resolution (Bell and Kahane 2005; Hardison 2006; United Nations Economic and Social
Council 2005).
Sorting these issues out and respecting Indigenous expectations is not easy.
Ethnobiologists need to pay close attention to the terms of the dialogues, try not to make
assumptions, and ensure that the rights and aspirations of the holders of the knowledge
are respected. The potential for misunderstanding can be high. For example, several meanings of “protect” have been used in the United Nations system, national laws and stakeholder
discussions. Protect may mean: (i) protection against extinction, in this case the knowledge
should be recorded and distributed as widely as possible; (ii) protection as part of the global
commons or common heritage of human kind, a position that proposes recording and wide
dissemination, and supports the idea of traditional knowledge being in the public domain, or
temporarily regulated by licenses that have few restrictions on use; (iii) protection against
any use by outsiders, a position that is commonly applied to secret and sacred knowledge;
(vi) protection against use contrary to customary law and spiritual values; (iv) protection
against some or all commercial uses; or (vii) protection of benefit sharing, that is,
ensuring that if traditional knowledge is used, the holders of knowledge can receive and
determine the type of benefits they receive, which may be non-monetary benefits.
Capacity-building and information-sharing, for example, are common desired outcomes
for research partnerships.
Traditional knowledge and resources may not be treated in a single way. Communities
will make their own classification and decisions about different types. Indigenous peoples
may elect to put some types of knowledge in the public domain or create a traditional knowledge commons license—a kind of contract that can allow for wide use while reserving the
right to control some uses, such as commercial use. For other types, such as secret and sacred
knowledge, strict protection may be sought.
In many cases, PIC will be a difficult standard to meet, at least until Indigenous peoples
create institutions to address these new situations. Individualism is favored in legal systems,
46
Chapter 3
Ethics in Ethnobiology
in part because it is relatively easy to define an authoritative agent with a clear right to make
decisions—the individual, or the corporation figured as an individual. As discussed previously, many groups do not have a social structure that easily fits onto the classic “notional
community” (a theoretical or imagined community). There are significant questions about
how to sort out disputes within and between communities. Identifying a process to get a collective authoritative answer can be difficult.
Anthropologists have a long history of study on the issue of knowledge diffusion
(Brown 2003.), and understand that there are likely to be many cases of confusion, power
struggles, and contested claims over the identification of rights holders (Brown 1998;
Nicholas and Bannister 2004). Some Indigenous culture groups, like the Athabaskans and
Coast Salish, may share knowledge and resources in common over a wide area, and dispute
decisions about sharing them.
Indigenous peoples and researchers alike will have to become more knowledgeable
about the IPR system, the human rights system, and emerging laws and principles. Indigenous peoples do not usually have a history with activities such as publishing, recording,
or patenting, which would put them in contact with the IPR system. Even researchers can be
naı̈ve about IPR, for example the distinction between fact and expression, the typical passage
from protection to the public domain in the current intellectual property system, and the
inability to ensure protection (as Indigenous peoples understand it) once knowledge has
been published. For example, under the Bayh-Dole Act (University and Small Business
Patent Procedures Act of 1980) in the United States, the federal government allows universities to apply for IPR for federal government-funded research. Most universities today
aggressively pursue this right, and even put conditions into faculty contracts that force
them to pursue, or allow the university to pursue, patents on their research. Often the university, not the researcher, holds the patents. Dissertation and other publishing requirements of
universities, as well as freedom of information laws, may not be able to ensure that all personal agreements between researchers and Indigenous communities can be honored. The
commitments that an individual can uphold are often limited by the policies of the institutions to which they have employment obligations.
As applied scientists, ethnobiologists straddle the worlds of scientific understanding and
social justice, according the priorities and lenses of science, and seeking equity for the
peoples with whom they work. To sit astride this divide requires great skill, sensitivity
and diplomacy. Indigenous worldviews and political struggles may use narratives that do
not always fit comfortably with scientific models and evidence. Even where there may be
a general fit, there are conflicts in the details. There are two broad threats in these conflicts.
The first concerns the potential contribution of scientists to the erosion of the underlying
belief systems that maintain traditions and beliefs that underlie desired ends, such as conservation practices, sustainable harvest, and the maintenance of biocultural diversity. The
second is that when the scientific evidence conflicts with Indigenous narratives, scientists
can have adverse impacts on Indigenous political struggles to achieve recognition of their
human rights and rights to their traditional lands and waters.
When faced with these dilemmas, ethnobiologists should keep in mind the aphorism,
primum non nocere (Latin: “first, do no harm”—origin uncertain but often ascribed to
Hippocrates). In part, this requires developing a working understanding of the larger ethical,
legal, and political picture in which research is embedded. It also involves gaining a level of
cultural competency at the local level, understanding community research protocols and
governance structures, enabling meaningful community participation, and being mindful
not to impose external assumptions about what constitutes “help” on Indigenous and
local peoples who will speak for themselves if the rest of us listen.
References
47
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Chapter
4
From Researcher to Partner:
Ethical Challenges and Issues
Facing the Ethnobiological
Researcher
MICHAEL P. GILMORE
New Century College, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
W. HARDY ESHBAUGH
Department of Botany, Miami University, Oxford, OH
INTRODUCTION
52
KEY QUESTIONS FOR ETHNOBIOLOGISTS
52
1. HAVE YOU RECEIVED PROPER PERMISSION TO CONDUCT
YOUR RESEARCH?
52
2. HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT AND INCORPORATED LOCAL NEEDS,
CHALLENGES, AND PRIORITIES INTO THE RESEARCH PROJECT?
55
3. WHO IS BENEFITING FROM THE RESEARCH AND HOW ARE
COLLABORATING COMMUNITIES AND INDIVIDUALS BEING
COMPENSATED?
56
4. HOW WILL THE RESULTS OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT BE
SHARED AND USED?
57
5. ARE THE INTERESTS OF COLLABORATING COMMUNITIES AND
INDIVIDUALS BEING ACKNOWLEDGED AND PROTECTED WHEN
DISSEMINATING RESEARCH RESULTS?
58
CASE STUDY 4.1
59
CONCLUSION
61
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
61
REFERENCES
61
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
51
52
Chapter 4
Ethical Challenges and Issues Facing the Ethnobiological Researcher
INTRODUCTION
Many subdisciplines of ethnobiology require the researcher to work directly with
both Indigenous and local communities. Consequently, not only are ethnobiologists at the
interface of different disciplines, they are also at the interface of different cultural,
social, political, and economic realities and worlds. In addition, ethnobiological researchers
often work with marginalized communities experiencing enormous sociocultural and
environmental pressures and changes, further challenging the researcher (Alexiades 1996;
Alexiades and Laird 2002; Cunningham 1996). These conditions create a multidimensional,
complex, and ever-changing ethical landscape for the ethnobiological researcher to
navigate. Additionally, the relationships between researchers and communities
more often than not are played out in a context of asymmetry in power, privilege, and
intent, further complicating the host of ethical challenges and concerns confronting the
ethnobiologist.
In order to properly engage with these ethical challenges and concerns, we propose and
discuss five critical questions that every ethnobiologist should ask prior to beginning a
research project.
1. Have you received proper permission to conduct your research?
2. Have you thought about and incorporated local needs, challenges, and priorities into
the research project?
3. Who is benefiting from the research and how are collaborating communities and
individuals being compensated?
4. How will the results of the research project be shared and used?
5. Are the interests of collaborating communities and individuals being acknowledged
and protected when disseminating research results?
These questions and their answers address many of the major ethical challenges and issues
facing the ethnobiological researcher, including prior informed consent (PIC), research
permits, compensation, equitable benefit sharing, and the publication of research results,
among others.
KEY QUESTIONS FOR ETHNOBIOLOGISTS
1. Have You Received Proper Permission to Conduct
Your Research?
Prior to undertaking any ethnobiological research activities, researchers must seek the proper
permits and permission to proceed from the appropriate stakeholders. The stakeholders
involved in ethnobiological research projects commonly cross cultural, economic, and political boundaries and include the researcher, the sponsoring organization or institution, the
government where research will be conducted, the participating Indigenous or local community, and individual research participants. Reasons for obtaining the proper permits and permission are many, but on the most basic level, researchers must never forget that they are
guests of host countries and communities and therefore have ethical responsibilities to act
in accordance with national and local rules and regulations (Boom 1990). Additionally,
Indigenous peoples’ groups have articulated through declarations and statements their
desire for more equitable research partnerships and the need for researchers to seek and
negotiate access to their knowledge, resources, and territories (Dutfield 2002). As stated
Key Questions for Ethnobiologists
53
in the International Society of Ethnobiology Code of Ethics (ISE 2006: 3), “. . . much
research has been undertaken in the past without the sanction or prior informed consent
of Indigenous peoples, traditional societies and local communities and that such research
has caused harm and adversely impacted their rights and responsibilities to biocultural
heritage.” In short, seeking the permission of Indigenous and local communities prior to
conducting research can help to avoid perpetuating past injustices and help build true collaborative partnerships for the future (ISE 2006).
There are a broad range of public and private institutions involved in ethnobiological research initiatives, including universities, botanic gardens, museums, government
agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and private corporations. As Laird
and Wynberg (2002) note, most institutions sponsoring biodiversity research and prospecting do not have formal written policies or guidelines monitoring field research or benefit
sharing but instead rely on long-standing practices understood by researchers as “best
practice.” In response to the Convention on Biological Diversity, however, many institutions
have developed or are in the process of developing more formal institutional policies such as
the initiatives detailed in Laird and Wynberg (2002). Regardless, it behooves the ethnobiological researcher to seek out information regarding the institutional policies of their
sponsoring organization for research involving biocultural diversity or resources prior to
conducting any field research.
For university researchers (e.g., faculty members, graduate students, research associates,
etc.) in the United States, institutional review boards (IRBs) oversee research conducted
in the social sciences, including ethnobiological and anthropological research. Before
starting any research activities, IRBs often require researchers to pass training courses
on ethics and submit proposals for review and revision. Researchers who fail to comply
with IRB requirements risk sanctions including denial of promotion, funding, and/or
degrees (Schrag 2009). Unfortunately, the provisions set forth by most IRBs are designed
primarily to target medical and psychological research and in so doing give little consideration to the type of research initiatives commonly undertaken by ethnobiologists and
the Indigenous and local communities that they engage (Eshbaugh 2008). Research ethics
standards at Canadian universities are set by the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical
Conduct for Research Involving Humans which, like US regulations, requires Canadian
universities to have research ethics boards which evaluate research involving humans
(Bannister 2005).
Ethnobiologists must obtain the proper permits and permission from host country governments and institutions prior to conducting their research activities (Alexiades 1996; ISE
2006). This often requires applying for permits to work with Indigenous communities as
well as to collect and export biological specimens. Compliance with the rules and regulations
of host country governments and institutions is of the utmost importance and it is expected
that researchers will uphold the principle of PIC. PIC, as defined by Laird and Noejovich
(2002: 190), “broadly means the consent of a party to an activity that is given after receiving
full disclosure regarding the reasons for the activity, the specific procedures the activity will
entail, the potential risks involved and the full implications that can realistically be foreseen.”
Importantly, in regard to working with genetic resources, the need to receive PIC from host
governments before conducting research is explicitly stated in Article 15.5 of the Convention
on Biological Diversity (Laird 2002; Laird and Noejovich 2002). Failure to seek government
permission and obtain official government permits justifiably fuels thoughts and concerns
over biopiracy, neocolonialism, and researcher arrogance, among others. To eliminate
unnecessary speculation regarding researcher compliance with government regulations, all
publications should formally acknowledge permit approval by citing the appropriate
permit number (Cunningham 1996).
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Prior to initiating any field research or activities, ethnobiologists are also required to
obtain PIC from the Indigenous and local communities with whom they seek to collaborate
(ISE 2006; Laird and Noejovich 2002). Obtaining PIC from communities requires the
researcher to provide full and honest disclosure of the project objectives, researcher identities, institutional sponsors, research methods, potential benefits and risks, plans for the dissemination of research results, funding sources, and any commercial interests, among others
(ISE 2006; Laird and Noejovich 2002; Posey and Dutfield 1996). The International Society
of Ethnobiology Code of Ethics (ISE 2006) states that community consent is ideally documented in writing and/or via tape recording. Importantly, Indigenous peoples’ groups have
articulated their desire for PIC through a wide variety of declarations and statements over the
years (Dutfield 2002). Additionally, in these same declarations and statements they have also
declared it their right to veto proposed research projects and access to their territories,
resources, or knowledge.
It is important to note that PIC should not be considered a single-step process. PIC
should be sought prior to the initiation of the research project, and then consultation and disclosure should be an ongoing, dynamic, and interactive process throughout the life of the
project to ensure true negotiation of consent (Alexiades and Peluso 2002; ISE 2006;
Laird and Noejovich 2002). This is especially true given that it is often difficult to properly
communicate and explain the principles of PIC and the research process due to the fact that
they are often complex and foreign concepts, outside the cultural experiences of many
Indigenous and local groups (Alexiades and Peluso 2002; Eshbaugh 2008; FSI and
Kothari 1997; Guerin-McManus and Kim 2002). Thus, for researchers engaging with an
Indigenous or local group for the first time, it is recommended that they enlist the help of
individuals or organizations more culturally and linguistically familiar with the group
and/or that they use a step-wise research process where different parts of the research process are sequentially introduced and given permission (Alexiades and Peluso 2002). An
ongoing and interactive consultative process is also recommended because, as Alexiades
and Peluso (2002) note, it is difficult for researchers to foresee all of the potential implications and risks associated with research activities at the onset of a project, the asymmetrical
power that exists between researchers and research participants makes achieving true negotiation regarding consent difficult, and identifying the various stakeholders present within
communities at the beginning of a project can be problematic.
Cultural norms such as communal institutions, systems of exchange, and local decision
making processes must also be respected and empowered for true negotiation of consent to
occur (Alexiades and Peluso 2002; Laird and Noejovich 2002). To increase success, PIC
consultations should also reflect community diversity and should be inclusive of the different groups (e.g., women, men, elders, clans, extended families, healers, fishers, hunters, etc.)
that are present within a community. This will ensure a diversity of opinions, concerns, and
points of view regarding the proposed research project (Alexiades and Peluso 2002; Laird
and Noejovich 2002). In addition, after receiving initial community PIC for the research project, researchers need to obtain PIC from each individual research participant engaged
throughout the course of the research project. An ongoing and interactive consultation
and disclosure process with individual research participants is also required to ensure complete understanding and to obtain true consent.
Drafting a research agreement between the researcher and the community is also encouraged to further clarify and define research relationships (ISE 2006; Laird and Noejovich
2002). The research agreement should be in a format and language understandable to all parties and, if permitted by the community, should be in writing and/or tape-recorded (ISE
2006). Laird and Noejovich (2002) provide detailed recommendations regarding the key
Key Questions for Ethnobiologists
55
elements of research agreements for academic projects, including sections addressing project principles and objectives, the process by which agreement was reached, responsibilities
of the researcher, responsibilities of local communities, benefit sharing, conditions attached
to collected information, and reporting, monitoring and evaluation, among others. Although
this represents an investment of time on behalf of the researcher, as Laird and Noejovich
(2002: 204) note, “In most cases, written agreements should not make the research process
unnecessarily bureaucratic and restrictive for ethical and conscientious researchers. If
relationships are well defined, resulting from an effective consultation process, drafting a
written agreement should be straightforward and quite simple.”
Importantly, the extent and format of the research agreement will vary based on the
nature, scale, and intent of the research project (Laird and Noejovich 2002). For example,
research projects that are larger in size and scope, require extensive collecting of biological
specimens, or are participatory and community-based in nature, will require greater investments of time and energy in developing a research agreement. Regardless, there is a need for
flexibility in research agreements given the dynamic nature of research projects (Laird and
Noejovich 2002), especially those that are participatory and community-based. Additionally,
for general principles and recommendations regarding commercial research agreements and
contracts please see Tobin (2002) and Gollin (2002).
2. Have You Thought About and Incorporated Local Needs,
Challenges, and Priorities into the Research Project?
It is simply not enough just to inform Indigenous and local communities of ethnobiological
research activities but instead it is necessary to include them in all aspects of the research
process, including project design, implementation, reporting, and evaluation (Alexiades
and Laird 2002; ISE 2006). As Cunningham (1996: 20) states, there is a “need to conduct
research with local people rather than purely for or about them.” Ultimately, this helps
make research more accountable to the needs, priorities, and challenges of host communities. Significantly, recognizing the need for more participatory and community-based
research methodologies is closely in line with calls by Indigenous peoples’ groups for
active participation in the research process and more equitable research partnerships
(Dutfield 2002).
The unprecedented decline and loss of global biocultural diversity (Maffi 2001) also
highlights the need for more participatory and community-based projects within Indigenous
and local communities. As previously stated, ethnobiological researchers often work in
areas and communities experiencing enormous sociocultural and environmental change
and therefore they are on the front line of the loss of biocultural diversity. In short, there
is a moral, ethical, and scientific imperative for ethnobiologists to develop participatory,
community-based, and applied projects targeting the biocultural needs, challenges, and
priorities of these communities. Significantly, due to the fact that ethnobiologists are trained
to navigate the interface of the cultural and biological realms, they are ideally suited for
developing the requisite interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary projects.
Unfortunately, as the need to develop participatory and community-based biocultural
conservation projects continues to grow, as Alexiades and Laird (2002: 14) state, “academic
advancement criteria have not changed, and the type of applied, multidisciplinary research
most valuable for conservation and development in host countries and communities is
poorly rewarded, and often even discouraged (Orr 1999).” Perhaps this helps to explain
the fact that, while academic ethnobiologists continue to lament the general loss of global
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biocultural diversity, most of their publications and conference presentations omit any
mention of how their research projects are locally impacting biocultural conservation or
affecting change. Or, at least, this is a more palatable explanation than assuming that the
needed participatory and community-based biocultural conservation projects are not being
developed and implemented.
Beyond potentially positively impacting the conservation of biocultural diversity,
participatory and community-based research can also make projects more relevant and
empowering to local communities and individuals (Alexiades 1996, 2003; FSI and
Kothari 1997). Additionally, it can ultimately help to foster more equitable research partnerships, transforming host communities into full and equal partners in all aspects of the
research process. It is also critically important that researchers remain cognizant of how
their research projects can assist broader regional and national biocultural conservation
efforts. In addition, many ethnobiological studies can help to provide baseline data for
such international initiatives as the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Global Strategy
for Plant Conservation (GSPC) whose main goal is to halt the loss of plant diversity worldwide (Simmonds 2009). Therefore, it is critically important that researchers contact the
appropriate host country institutions and organizations to determine how or if they can
assist with a broader biocultural conservation agenda.
3. Who is Benefiting from the Research and How are
Collaborating Communities and Individuals Being
Compensated?
There is little doubt that Indigenous and local communities and individuals have a right
to benefit from research on or about their knowledge, resources, and territories.
Intellectual property rights (IPR)—the use of patents, copyrights, trade secrets and trademarks to protect knowledge and innovations from outside use without adequate consent
or compensation—have been suggested as a mechanism to protect traditional knowledge
from misappropriation or commodification and/or to exact compensation for commercial
use of such knowledge. As Posey notes (2002: 9), there are limitations and inadequacies
of IPR with regard to the protection of traditional knowledge and community resources.
These include: they “require individual, not collective rights; require a specific act of ‘invention’; simplify ownership regimes; stimulate commercialization; recognize only market
values; are subject to economic powers and manipulation; are difficult to monitor and
enforce; [and] are expensive, complicated, [and] time-consuming.” Brush (1993, 1998,
2004) has also argued that monetary compensation via IPR may in fact cause more harm
than good in certain situations and cultures. Most importantly for our discussion, FSI and
Kothari (1997) stress that IPR is focused on protection from or obtaining compensation
for commercial use of knowledge and that compensation, if it happens, usually takes
place long after research has been completed and is not included as an integral part of the
research process.
Although IPR may be an important mechanism for compensation in certain situations,
due to the limitations of IPR described above and the need to compensate Indigenous
and local communities for benefits obtained from a non-commercial research process, FSI
and Kothari (1997: 127) “argue for integrating compensation and empowerment into the
heart of the research process rather than viewing them as post-project undertakings.”
Significantly, the reasons for compensation and benefits from a non-commercial research
process are many. Perhaps most important is the fact that, although most academic and
Key Questions for Ethnobiologists
57
non-commercial research projects do not directly lead to monetary or material benefits
for the researcher, they often directly or indirectly lead to post-graduate degrees, grants,
fellowships, publications, awards, and professional advancement, among many others, all
of which ultimately contribute to material or monetary gains (FSI and Kothari 1997;
Laird et al. 2002).
In short, we strongly feel that the most appropriate and effective way to integrate compensation and empowerment directly “into the heart of the research process” is by developing participatory, community-based, and applied projects with host communities. These
projects can take a variety of forms, including sustainability studies on non-timber forest
products (e.g., Endress et al. 2004), community-based medicinal plant projects (e.g., FSI
and Kothari 1997), or participatory mapping projects focused on documenting ancestral
territories, gathering and guarding traditional knowledge and illustrating resource use patterns (see Case Study 4.1), among many other examples. Notably, the common thread of
all of these projects is that they are targeting the biocultural needs, priorities, and challenges
of Indigenous and local communities resulting in concrete and clear benefits for these
groups. Additionally, many participatory, community-based, and applied projects can also
include significant capacity building and training components for participating communities
and individuals which are key elements of any ethically grounded research initiative
(ISE 2006).
4. How Will the Results of the Research Project be
Shared and Used?
No project is complete until the results have been shared. Deciding how and who the results
should be shared with is a key question before moving forward. Potential entities to share
research results with include participating communities and individuals, host country governments, policy-makers, non-governmental organizations, and the academic community.
Unfortunately, researchers generally consider the research process complete upon publication of research results, which is more often than not in academic journals (Shanley and
Laird 2002). As Shanley and Laird (2002: 102) state, “The result is that most information
and scientific understanding generated by researchers remains in the hands of scientists,
academics and policy-makers geographically and conceptually distant from the region of
study.” Thus, research results often do not reach local communities where research was conducted and where the information is often needed most. Additionally, if research results are
shared with local communities, they are often in inappropriate formats (i.e., translations of
academic publications, etc.), making them extremely limited in value. Therefore, not only
is there a need to develop participatory, community-based and applied research projects
with Indigenous and local communities, but there is an urgent need for researchers to
return research results in formats that are relevant to these communities and their biocultural
needs, priorities, and challenges.
As Shanley and Laird (2002) note, there are a variety of ways in which research
results can be converted into forms that are relevant to Indigenous or local communities
and other stakeholders. These include written and oral or in-person formats. Written
materials may take the form of manuals, illustrated booklets, posters, curricula materials
for schools, coloring books for children, and technical books. Oral or in-person formats
may include interactive seminars and workshops, exchanges between groups, theater
and traveling shows, role playing, videos, music, field courses, and lectures. The exact
format that research results will take will be driven by overall objectives and the audience
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Ethical Challenges and Issues Facing the Ethnobiological Researcher
or group that is being targeted (Shanley and Laird 2002). For example, the residents of
isolated Indigenous or local communities may be semi-literate and therefore the oral or
in-person formats described above along with illustrated booklets may be most appropriate,
whereas it may be best to provide government officials with academic publications and
technical books.
In short, sharing research results in an appropriate manner with the correct stakeholders
can result in a variety of positive outcomes, including helping to foster conservation (Shanley
and Laird 2002), validate or reaffirm Indigenous knowledge and cultures (Alexiades 2004;
Laird et al. 2002), conserve and record threatened knowledge (Laird et al. 2002), facilitate
territorial or management claims (Laird et al. 2002), and it can result in community empowerment (Shanley 1999). Unfortunately, although there are a whole host of positive outcomes
related to appropriately sharing research results with Indigenous and local communities, some
researchers will inevitably focus on the impediments to doing so. For example, some ethnobiological researchers may not have the necessary expertise and skills to accomplish this, yet
this can be overcome by collaborating with individuals and/or organizations who do
(Shanley and Laird 2002). Additionally, this requires both time and money which researchers
oftentimes lack and returning research results to Indigenous and local communities in nontraditional formats is not encouraged or rewarded by academic advancement and promotion
systems and criteria (Shanley and Laird 2002). However, as the International Society of
Ethnobiology Code of Ethics (ISE 2006: 7) states:
. . . research and related activities should not be initiated unless there is reasonable assurance that
all stages can be completed from (a) preparation and evaluation, to (b) full implementation, to (c)
evaluation, dissemination and return of results to the communities in comprehensible and locally
appropriate forms, to (d) training and education as an integral part of the project, including
practical application of results. [emphasis added]
5. Are the Interests of Collaborating Communities and
Individuals Being Acknowledged and Protected when
Disseminating Research Results?
Although there are a variety of positive outcomes associated with sharing research results
with stakeholders, it is important to remember that sharing results can also result in an assortment of potentially unintended negative consequences for Indigenous and local communities. For example, the publication or sharing of research results inappropriately can
result in the misappropriation and commodification of the knowledge or resources of host
communities by third parties, such as corporations, without appropriate consultation, permission, or compensation (Alexiades 2004; Laird et al. 2002; Milliken 2002). In fact, it
has been found that literature and databases are important sources of information about natural products for pharmaceutical companies who use ethnobotanical information in research
programs (ten Kate and Laird 1999). Additionally, the publication of biological information
can sometimes endanger economically or culturally important species or habitats and sharing traditionally restricted types of specialized knowledge of individuals or groups within
communities can threaten cultural stability (Laird et al. 2002).
Therefore, a tension exists between sharing information and acknowledging and protecting the rights, resources, and knowledge of Indigenous and local communities. For
example, disciplinary norms, institutional expectations, and funding organizations often
place considerable pressure on academic ethnobiological researchers to quickly, freely,
and openly share research results via scientific publications which often is in conflict with
providing host communities with greater control over this information or adequately
Case Study 4.1
59
protecting it (Alexiades and Laird 2002; Laird et al. 2002). Additionally, these same tensions
also exist when producing field guides of medicinal plants for communities (Milliken 2002)
and sharing results from participatory mapping projects (see Case Study 4.1), among others,
as this information can also be misappropriated without community consent. In short, there
is a critical need for researchers to proceed with extreme caution before sharing research
results and to strike a balance between professional expectations and the needs and interests
of host communities. Individual researchers and communities have developed a variety of
innovative ways to strike this balance, including restricting the disclosure of ethnobiological
information to already published species, excluding species names from publications,
forgoing the publication of select data, and restricting access to culturally sensitive data
by outsiders (Laird et al. 2002).
In addition, it is necessary for ethnobiological researchers to understand that they
must receive permission from host communities in order to publish information regarding
their knowledge, resources, or territories. As stated in the International Society of
Ethnobiology Code of Ethics (ISE 2006: 6), Indigenous and local communities “have the
right to exclude from publication and/or to have kept confidential any information concerning their culture, identity, language, traditions, mythologies, spiritual beliefs or genomics. . .
Indigenous peoples, traditional societies, and local communities also have the rights to privacy and anonymity, at their discretion.” To further protect and acknowledge the rights and
ownership of host communities over their knowledge, resources, and territories it is also
expected that they will be given credit for their contributions to research activities in all project publications or materials and will be afforded co-authorship when appropriate, unless
anonymity has been requested (Alexiades 1996; Cunningham 1996; FSI and Kothari
1997; ISE 2006).
CASE STUDY 4.1
Maps from the Forest: The Maijuna Participatory Mapping
Project
The Maijuna, also known as the Orejón, are an Amazonian Indigenous group presently found along
the Sucusari, Yanayacu, and Algodón rivers of the northeastern Peruvian Amazon (Gilmore 2005,
2010). There are approximately 400 Maijuna individuals living in four communities located along
the above-mentioned rivers. The residents of these communities employ a variety of subsistence
strategies, including hunting, fishing, swidden-fallow agriculture, and the gathering of various
forest products. All four communities are recognized as Comunidades Nativas (Native
Communities) by the Peruvian Government and all have been granted title to parcels of land in
which their respective communities are located (Brack-Egg 1998). Unfortunately, the titled land
that the Maijuna have received is a very small portion of their ancestral territory. Therefore, hundreds
of thousands of hectares of Maijuna traditional land within the Sucusari, Yanayacu, and Algodón
watersheds, the vast majority of which is intact and undisturbed primary rain forest, currently remains
unprotected (Gilmore 2010).
Today, Maijuna traditional lands within the Sucusari, Yanayacu, and Algodón watersheds,
which comprise approximately 300,000 ha of primary rain forest, are under siege by illegal incursions
from loggers, hunters, fishermen, and resource extractors from outside communities (Gilmore 2005,
2010). In addition, the Peruvian Government has recently proposed the construction of a road through
Maijuna traditional and titled lands, which the Maijuna adamantly oppose, and has yet to properly
consult the Maijuna about the proposed road and its potential biological and cultural ramifications
(Gilmore 2010). These developments threaten to irreversibly alter Maijuna traditional lands and
also their very way of life. In response to these and other threats to their biocultural resources, leaders
from all four Maijuna communities took the initiative in 2004 to establish the Federación de
Comunidades Nativas Maijuna (FECONAMAI), a Maijuna Indigenous federation representing all
four Maijuna communities (Gilmore 2010). The principle goals of FECONAMAI since its inception
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Ethical Challenges and Issues Facing the Ethnobiological Researcher
are to (1) conserve the Maijuna culture, (2) conserve the environment, and (3) improve Maijuna
community organization (FECONAMAI 2004, 2007).
From 2004 to 2009, M. Gilmore (whom has worked closely with the Maijuna since 1999) and
his student J. Young collaborated with FECONAMAI on a community-based project using participatory mapping techniques as a tool to help conserve Maijuna traditional lands and their biocultural
resources (see Gilmore and Young 2010). Participatory mapping consists of encouraging local people
to draw maps of their lands that include culturally and biologically significant information (e.g., landuse data, resource distributions, and culturally, biologically, and historically significant sites) (Smith
1995; Herlihy and Knapp 2003; Corbett and Rambaldi 2009). Importantly, participatory mapping
has been successfully used throughout the world by a variety of Indigenous and local communities
for a wide range of purposes, including to establish past and present boundaries of occupied territory,
form the basis of land claims, and defend communal territory from incursions by outsiders, among
many others (Arvelo-Jiménez and Conn 1995; Chapin and Threlkeld 2001; Neitschmann 1995; Poole
1995).
After obtaining PIC from each of the four Maijuna communities and receiving input with regard
to project design and implementation, community meetings were held in each of the communities
where participants drew detailed maps of their traditional and titled lands. These maps included hundreds of culturally and biologically significant sites, including old and new house sites and swiddens,
past and present cemeteries, locations of ancient Maijuna battles, and hunting, fishing, and plant collecting sites, among many others. Upon completion of each map, a team of Maijuna cultural experts
was selected in each community to work with the researchers to visit and fix the location of as many of
the identified sites as possible using hand-held global positioning system (GPS) units (Chapin and
Threlkeld 2001; Sirait et al. 1994). Additionally, while in the field, key and detailed information pertaining to the ethnohistory, traditional stories, and resource-use strategies for each site was also documented via ethnographic interviewing techniques and recorded using voice recorders, cameras, and
video cameras. Ultimately, the field teams located and fixed the geographical coordinates of over 900
culturally and biologically significant sites within the Sucusari, Yanayacu, and Algodón river basins
(Gilmore and Young 2010).
Upon returning from the field, the data collected was integrated, organized, analyzed, and spatially represented using ArcGIS, a geographic information systems (GIS) software package (Corbett
and Rambaldi 2009; Duncan 2006; Elwood 2009; Scott 1995; Sirait et al. 1994). The maps produced
from this phase of the research project have been shared with the Maijuna and they have requested that
they be shared with the Gobierno Regional de Loreto (GOREL), the Regional Government of the
Peruvian Amazon, in the hope that they will be used to help justify the establishment of an Área de
Conservación Regional (ACR; Regional Conservation Area), which would formally protect
Maijuna traditional and titled lands. Significantly, the creation of an ACR that would legally and
formally protect Maijuna ancestral lands and resources in perpetuity is the number one goal of
FECONAMAI and they are currently and actively petitioning GOREL for its creation (Gilmore 2010).
The results of this community-based project have also been shared with and used by the
Maijuna in other ways. For example, copies of the hand-drawn maps produced in each of the different
Maijuna communities have been returned to them. Two different versions of each of these maps
have been provided to the Maijuna at their request. One version of each map contains all of the
information drawn on the original, while the other version was altered to omit information that
they consider and have designated as culturally sensitive and important. According to the
Maijuna, the map with the culturally sensitive and important information will only be made available
to Maijuna individuals, whereas the altered version may be shared with visitors from outside communities. This ultimately helps to protect against the misappropriation and commodification of
this information by outside resource extractors and other nefarious individuals. The Maijuna plan
to use the unedited maps to teach their children the geographic and traditional knowledge embedded
within them. This is critically important given that many Maijuna children do not know the traditional
Maijuna names and locations of the various rivers, streams, and other culturally and biologically significant places and sites within their traditional lands. Therefore, these maps can serve as critical and
much needed teaching tools.
References
61
It is also important to note that some challenges exist with regard to sharing the information
collected during the course of this community-based project in culturally appropriate and relevant
formats and ways with the Maijuna. For example, the researchers are currently working to integrate
the ethnohistorical and cultural information obtained via the ethnographic interviews completed
in the field into the GIS database described above. This will require uploading, organizing, and integrating hundreds of interviews, photographs, and videos, ultimately developing a multimedia
participatory GIS (PGIS) database that will serve as a reservoir of Maijuna traditional knowledge
and beliefs regarding their ancestral lands and the biocultural resources found within them. This
is critically important given that Maijuna elders and leaders would like to use this repository of information in cultural preservation and revitalization programs. However, the main challenge will be how
to make this happen effectively, given that the Maijuna do not currently have the technological
resources or skills necessary to access and use such a PGIS database. In short, the researchers will
have to continue to work with the Maijuna to reconcile their needs, challenges, and priorities with
the dataset at hand.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, there are a myriad of ethical challenges and issues facing the ethnobiological researcher while working with Indigenous and local communities. We have proposed
a series of five questions to provide a framework for decision making and conduct to
help ethnobiologists navigate this multidimensional and complex ethical landscape. These
questions point to the need for the field of ethnobiology to shift toward more participatory, community-based, and applied research projects, ultimately moving toward
more equitable partnerships with both Indigenous and traditional communities. We envision
“the researched” or the “subject population” becoming full and equal partners in all
aspects of the ethnobiological research process. We view this approach as a more ethical
research model and an absolutely necessary step if the field of ethnobiology is to have
any meaningful role in addressing and stopping the loss of global biocultural diversity. In
short, it is important for ethnobiologists to strengthen their research ethics by critically
reflecting on their purpose in doing research and asking who is empowered by their projects.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, we would like to acknowledge and thank the Maijuna people for their many intellectual contributions over the years as many of the ideas and concepts detailed in this paper were formulated in collaboration with them. Financial support for research with the Maijuna since 1999 was
provided by Miami University, George Mason University, The Rufford Small Grants Foundation,
the National Science Foundation, the Elizabeth Wakeman Henderson Charitable Foundation, and
Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens (Botany in Action). Additionally, we would like to
thank Adolph M. Greenberg, Jason C. Young, and Jyl M. Lapachin for their varied intellectual
contributions.
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Chapter
5
The World According to Is’a:
Combining Empiricism and
Spiritual Understanding in
Indigenous Ways of Knowing
RAYMOND PIEROTTI
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Global Indigenous Nations Studies, University
of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
BEING NATIVE TO A CHANGEABLE PLACE
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THE CONCEPT OF PERSONHOOD
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ATTITUDES TOWARDS PREDATORS
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THE NATURE OF CREATORS
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REFERENCES
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Nature speaks in many tongues and they are all alien. What a scientist tries to do is decipher these dialects.
— slightly modified from Dudley Herschbach (Harvard),
quoted in Bain (2004: 144)
I am particularly fond of the quote above, because I think it can be applied to any individual
from any cultural tradition who is involved in trying to figure out how the world works and
their place in it as a human being. All humans struggle with the mysteries of the Earth, the
universe, and what it means to be human. They face these struggles initially with a combination of ignorance and curiosity and, if they are self aware and insightful, with a mixture of
respect and caution.
The question I address is how human beings from various intellectual and cultural traditions deal with such intellectual and spiritual struggles. It is important to realize that these
struggles are both intellectual and spiritual, because the latter factor is often downplayed in
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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the Western tradition, although most insightful scholars recognize this duality. I hope to
demonstrate that the methods and insights developed by Indigenous cultures are as powerful
and useful in trying to understand the workings of the Earth and the nature of reality as any
other intellectual tradition, including what is known as “Western science” and the “scientific
method,” and that a major strength of the Indigenous approach is the integration of the
spiritual aspects of knowledge.
All intellectual traditions depend on the use of metaphor to model and investigate natural phenomena. “. . . [S]cientific understanding, like all human understanding, proceeds by
way of providing metaphorical redescriptions of phenomena” (Hesse 1974: 62). However,
when the metaphors involved come from Indigenous cultures they are all too often dismissed
as mere “stories” or “legends” (Deloria 1992; Pierotti 2011; Pierotti and Wildcat 2000). This
is disrespectful and almost certainly racist, because these Indigenous metaphors are derived
from careful observation of relationships, between humans and nonhumans and among nonhuman components of ecosystems, which lead to the basic Indigenous principles that “all
things are connected,” and “all things are related.”
Individuals of European ancestry often regard these basic principles as being somewhat
“mystical” and analogous to myth (Pierotti 2011; Pierotti and Wildcat 2000). They are not;
in fact these might well be recognized by people trained in the biological sciences as the
fundamental principles of ecology and evolutionary biology, respectively.
When I was a graduate student in Canada, I was asked to design an examination exercise
for a final in an introductory course in Biological Sciences. I asked students to assemble a
food web for the Georgia Strait off the coast of British Columbia. One of the professors
in charge of the course argued that this was not an appropriate question because “any intelligent person could answer it.” I was teaching my students the importance of understanding
connection and relationships among species, whereas the faculty member seemed to think
that connection was an obvious aspect of human awareness, and not of importance in the
biological sciences.
The problem in this particular instance, as well as in much of the confusion that results
from comparing Western scientific results and Indigenous observations, is that since the
Enlightenment the traditional model of nonhuman organisms in the Western scientific tradition has been the Cartesian metaphor of the machine, which considers organisms, and
even ecosystems, to be of interest primarily through the study of their constituent parts
(Pierotti 2011). According to this metaphor, the most effective way to understand the natural
world is by understanding its constituent parts and how they fit together (Coates 1998;
Lewontin 2001). One scholar says of Western science, “The entire system is totally, intensely
conservative, locked into itself, utterly impervious to any ‘hints’ from the outside world. . . .
This system obviously defies ‘dialectical’ description. It is not Hegelian at all, but
thoroughly Cartesian” (Monod 1979: 108). Over the last 300 years this machine-based analytic approach has been successful in explaining some aspects of nature, but it has also led to
an oversimplified view of the relation of parts to wholes and causes to effects (Lewontin
2001; Pierotti 2011).
The Western “scientific” tradition seeks “global” solutions, that is, results that can be
generalized across all localities. This leads to a problem in that solutions and results which
are often assumed to be global in scope turn out instead to be local. When I was an undergraduate in the early 1970s I listened to an acrimonious debate between two graduate students, one of whom studied Steller sea lions, Eumetopias jubatus, in Alaska, while the
other studied the same species in California. The investigator who worked in Alaska insisted
that parental care lasted for more than a year in this species whereas the California investigator insisted with equal assurance that offspring were weaned at the age of 3 – 4 months.
The World According to Is’a
67
Each insisted that their view of parent – offspring relationships in these sea lions was correct
and that the other must be wrong. When I suggested that they both might be right and that
ecological conditions in different locations might require different responses, both investigators dismissed me as a naive undergraduate who “did not understand how science
worked.”
Both were correct—harsher environmental conditions in Alaska favored extended parental care, whereas the milder California environment allowed sea lions to wean their young
at younger ages. To me as a larval-stage scientist, this debate revealed the limitations of the
Western typological, single “global solution” approach to science and the idea that species
were the same wherever they occurred. The true irony was that, given the proclivity of
Indigenous peoples to accept unusual observations and incorporate them in their understanding of the world, if an Aleut from Alaska met with a Yurok from California and presented
these differing results, each would have completely accepted the statements made by the
other as factual, and each would have presented a solid explanation based upon their knowledge of local environmental conditions.
The point is that the worldview, the way individuals see the world, has a major impact on
the way they interpret it. In the intellectual and philosophical traditions of the Indigenous
peoples of North America no question is off limits. The observations on which knowledge
of a local system is based are so careful and detailed that any aspect of relationships can be
discussed, among humans, between human and nonhuman, among nonhuman, etc. (see also
Barsh 2000). It is crucial to keep in mind, however, that this knowledge would only be applicable to local humans and nonhumans, that is, those that came from and shared the same
“place” (Anderson 1996; Basso 1996; Kidwell and Velie 2005).
Knowledge held by Indigenous people is specific, but also very accurate. It may often
be superior to Western science in its ability to predict local phenomena. Both are valid forms
of “science” or “ways of knowing,” but the scale at which they can be applied may differ.
Despite this emphasis on “local” knowledge, the knowledge base and techniques of different
groups of Indigenous peoples share similar philosophical and conceptual themes (Pierotti
2011; Pierotti and Wildcat 2000). These shared themes emerge from similar attitudes
towards the nature of relationships and relatedness that exist within and between social
and ecological communities.
Indigenous perspectives are most effective in observing and understanding wholes
rather than parts, because they operate at the level of human perception and concentrate
on functional relationships and coevolutionary processes rather than internal structure
(Barsh 1997, 2000). Indigenous intellectual and philosophical traditions largely ignore
the structure of matter at the cellular and molecular levels. Instead they emphasize relationships between species, responses to environmental variation, or the role of individual variation in population dynamics. To employ the metaphor from the epigram, Indigenous people
pay more attention to deciphering the dialects and understanding what messages can be discerned from the natural world, without feeling the need to break it down into its constituent
parts. They learn to understand the language, but are not simply linguists. Western science
would seem in many cases to be more concerned with the muscles that make up the tongue,
and how the words are formed, than their actual meaning.
The knowledge acquired through these communications from nature is typically embodied in the form of stories that derive from metaphoric interpretations of natural relationships. The stories of Indigenous Americans function both as information about ecological
and evolutionary relationships, and as instructions about ethical and moral behavior, because
they emerge from an understanding of relationships between species. One example of this
dual function is the relationship between wolf (I’sa) and coyote (Tseena or I’sa’pu) in the
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tales of Numic peoples, including Utes, Paiutes, Shoshones and Comanches. To begin with,
Wolf and Coyote are described as brothers (Lily Pete, in Smith 1993: 3; see also Papanikolas
1995; Ramsey 1977), which is a metaphor that establishes the evolutionary relationship and
shared ancestry between these two closely related species within the genus Canis. Second,
both Wolf and Coyote are also characterized as good hunters, although Wolf is considered to
be a much better hunter. For example, Wolf is capable of taking adult deer whereas Coyote
takes primarily fawns, along with rabbits and rats (Lily Pete, in Smith 1993: 5; Johnny Dick,
in Smith 1993: 91), which accurately characterizes the ecological roles of these two species.
Thus both the ecological and evolutionary relationships among species are crucial aspects of
the metaphor and of the stories that are derived from it.
To establish an ethical and moral perspective in these stories, Wolf and Coyote are often
shown as arguing about how the world should function. Wolf is represented as a kind elder
sibling or parent, who desires a world in which death is only temporary, childbirth is easy
and pleasant for women, and winter does not exist. In contrast, Coyote, the impudent
younger sibling or rebellious child, challenges his/her older brother/sister—arguing that
death should be permanent, childbirth should be difficult, and hardships and cold weather
should be regular aspects of human experience.
The interesting aspect of this dichotomy is that although Numic children are taught to
emulate Wolf, and view Wolf as a much more sympathetic figure than Coyote, it is Coyote
who presents the more realistic view of how the world truly functions (Pierotti 2011). Wolf is
often frustrated by the actions of the various species in the world s/he has worked to put
together. As an example:
When Creation was finished, Gray Wolf’s children began to do wrong, they fought amongst
themselves. Their father, Gray Wolf, became angry, and kicked them all out. He decided to go
south; he said, “My children are not going to see me again!” Then his wife cried, “But my children
are here!” But they went down to the water anyway, it is said, and walked away over its surface.
Gray Wolf and his wife came to a tall mountain, with a pine-covered summit. He said, “I am
going in there; afterwards my children will see my tracks going in. Here I have come and left
my tracks; Nuhmuhnuh will see them and so will white men.” So it was.
Ramsey 1977: 231
Another such story from the Shoshone (Sosoni or Newa-nuh) of Nevada is told by an
elder of the tribe.
You see, the coyote and the wolf were talking long ago. Wolf was arguing that we should all look
alike, the rocks should be the same, the sagebrush the same, the humans the same, and all the
living things on this planet should be the same. We should think alike and act alike and so forth.
But Coyote always said, “No, we should be all be different. We shouldn’t look alike at all.”
And so today we look around us and nothing looks alike. Rocks are not alike. Humans are not
alike. This is the root of why we don’t believe in each other. It’s just as Coyote said. There’s no use
believing in just one thing. Let’s not believe it. Let’s all disagree, and everybody believe in
different things. That’s why I always say, it’s easy to believe the bad things first, but the good thing
is harder to believe and harder to come by. As Wolf said, “It’s going to be really hard that way,
because what you’re saying is, let’s not believe in each other.”
So today, what Coyote said is what we’ve got. . . .
Harney 1995: 26
Numic people are children of I’sa, but siblings of I’sa’pu—they recognize that despite
the suffering and tragedy that result from Coyote’s vision, it is the way that things usually
work. It is stated about Coyote’s views about death and hardships that, “If it weren’t for
Coyote there would be too many people now” (Lily Pete, in Smith 1993: 3), which shows
Being Native to a Changeable Place
69
a recognition of the risks of local human overpopulation on potentially limiting sources of
food, water, etc.
One ironic twist in many of these stories is that despite his apparent realistic perspective,
on those occasions when Coyote gets his way he almost invariably regrets the consequences
of his actions. This allows Numic peoples to deal with a conundrum that confuses the best of
people, that is, if there is a kind creator, how can bad things happen? Coyote is also a bit of a
hypocrite, in that she seems to expect that the arguments she makes about how the world
should function apply to everyone other than herself. In this way he is like humans, who
bemoan the existence of suffering and sadness. Aspects of nature that appear cruel and arbitrary are inevitable consequences of existence, but often result from self-centered actions.
Thus, humans are shown that in their own vain, selfish, ego-driven behavior they act
more like Coyote, causing problems for themselves and the rest of the world, even though
they are expected to try to emulate the idealism and good behavior shown by Wolf.
Humans find themselves trapped by the real world and resent the sorrow and problems it presents them with, but these stories show them that such situations often result from situations
that they themselves have created (Papanikolas 1995; Pierotti in press; Ramsey 1977).
Western philosophical traditions have a less nuanced dichotomous view of the natural
world in which nature is either sentimentalized or treated as if it were cruel and destructive
(Coates 1998). In this tradition, there is assumed to be a rival entity that tries to thwart the
good efforts of the creator, and this entity is typically identified with the existence of
“evil” (Pagels 1995; Pavlik 1997; Sagan 1995).
Indigenous knowledge yields a more subtle and nuanced understanding of the functioning of the natural world. One major difference is that carnivores are recognized as being
powerful creatures, not unlike humans, and at least in the case of wolves, very similar to
humans in the structure of their family units (Pierotti 2011, see below). In contrast to the
social instincts of wolves, coyotes are recognized as more solitary and driven primarily
by only their own concerns rather than those of other beings. This self-centered behavior
causes problems, which can be somewhat alleviated through humans (or wolves) functioning as an integrated group where individuals work for the good of the group rather
than individual ends.
BEING NATIVE TO A CHANGEABLE PLACE
Through at least the past 11,000 years, and some say much longer, the land has supported
communities of people who have relied on the plants and animals of their home regions for
survival. These people have since time immemorial for them, adapted their lifestyles to the
changing climates and the fluctuations in abundance of fish, wildlife, and plants.
Turner 2005: 13–14
Indigenous Americans were almost certainly aware of the true nature of population and
environmental fluctuations because, as Turner indicates, they kept constant track of the
changeable non-equilibrium conditions that predominate in the real world. During the
period when modern human beings were evolving over the last 100,000 years there have
been only two generally stable periods of climate (Pearce 2007: 237). The first was when
the ice sheets were largest, and the world was coldest. The second is the period in which
we are living now. Ironically, the Western scientific tradition has existed primarily during
this last period, and therefore treats the current set of environmental conditions as if they
were typical and basically unchanging. This is one major reason why climate change disturbs and is often denied by people of European heritage—they have difficulty in imagining
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a world that changes beyond their control. It has only been in the last 25 years that Western
ecologists have begun to recognize the changeability of the natural world and to reject older
models based on the metaphors of “balance of nature” and “equilibrium” communities and
populations (Botkin 1990, 1991; Coates 1998: 186 –191; Hoffman and Parsons 1997;
Pearce 2007).
Ceremonies and stories of Indigenous Americans emphasize the changeable and unpredictable nature of the environment. This emphasis underlies the rituals involved in giving
thanks to animals and plants before or after taking them for human use (Pierotti 2005,
2011; Pierotti and Wildcat 1999a), as well as ceremonies such as the First Salmon Ceremonies in the Pacific Northwest and the Sun Dance of the Plains Indian tribes (Harrod
2000). Despite numerous references to “keeping things in balance” (e.g., Krech 1999), Indigenous ceremonies and rituals were based on an understanding of non-equilibrium population dynamics, combined with a realization that the natural world was almost never “in
balance” in the sense of remaining constant and unchanging.
It is in the best interest of human societies to try to minimize risk when dealing with key
food supplies. This is one reason why gathering by women is probably more important than
hunting by men in maintaining the basic sustenance of many Indigenous peoples around the
world. This also explains why, during the majority of times, little or nothing is wasted during
hunting activities (Pierotti 2005, 2010; Tanner 1979). The rituals associated with minimizing waste are therefore codified as “religious or spiritual,” because caring about your prey
makes you much more likely not to harm it, and reduce its dependability as a resource
(Anderson 1996; Pierotti 2005; Tanner 1979).
It is fairly obvious that Eurasia and America went down quite separate paths with regard
to perceptions of both the meaning of community and the natural world as a whole. This
emerged from the way these traditions tried to ensure reliable sources of animal protein.
Eurasia (and Africa) turned to the domestication of animals, especially social ungulates
(cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and horses). As a result, the Eurasian tradition either failed to
develop, or refused to retain, the concept of nonhuman animals as persons, because they
devalued the life of their ungulate chattel (an old French word derived from the word
cattle). This also led to the introduction of a wide range of animal-originated pathogenic
organisms that jumped from their original ungulate hosts (Diamond 1997; Pierotti 2004,
MS). In Europe and Asia domestication of animals probably predated the domestication
of plants. Human hunters wandered with herds. In Eurasia the herding ungulates that hunters
followed had social behavior that made them susceptible to domestication, that is, they lived
in herds with well developed dominance hierarchies and occupied overlapping home ranges
rather than territories (Diamond 1997: 197).
Domestication of plants is a different process, and took place in both the Americas and
Eurasia. Indigenous Americans lived and worked with corn, beans, and squash (Mt. Pleasant
2001). These plants are referred to as the “Three Sisters” because of the way they interact
ecologically. The corn acts as a support pole on which the beans grow. Beans, which are
legumes, fix nitrogen in the soil, thus providing nutrition for both corn and squash. The
growth form of the squash as a widespread vine, combined with its hairy leaves and
stalks, prevents herbivores ranging from insects to deer from getting to the beans and
corn. The three species each enhanced each others’ growth (Bruchac 2003; Mann 2005;
Mt. Pleasant 2001).
Domestication of plants does not seem to create a lack of respect for nonhumans. This is
probably because plants, especially when grown in a polyculture such as the Three Sisters,
seem to retain their essential nature as well as their ecological relationships to one another. In
contrast, Eurasian morals and ethics evolved to minimize the recognition of relatedness
Being Native to a Changeable Place
71
between humans and other animals. It is difficult to treat those considered to be relatives as
chattel, or as moveable property that you control.
The Western tradition was strengthened by the Renaissance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which emphasized absolute human autonomy (Coates 1998). The seventeenth century scientific revolution exacerbated the situation by “transforming nature from
a living organism into a machine—simple, unfeeling, inert matter with no intelligence,
soul, or purpose—the new mechanistic philosophy assisted the commodification of nature
. . .” The eighteenth century “Enlightenment” stressed that humans were masters of their
own destinies, and emphasized the subjugation of nature (Coates 1998). Europeans who
emigrated to North America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were disciples
of this cultural, philosophical, and intellectual tradition.
Given this tradition, it is not surprising that when Europeans came to North America,
they regarded the “wilderness” as threatening and hostile. Even the earliest European
explorers regarded America as a land full of uncontrolled and frightening peoples and animals (Martin 1999). Once Europeans learned of the philosophical and spiritual traditions of
the Indigenous peoples, they felt compelled to regard these beliefs as “primitive and savage”;
after all, these belief systems emphasized ties to nature or the wild that filled Europeans with
fear (Martin 1999; Pierotti 2011).
In contrast, the fundamental philosophical principles of Indigenous peoples are based
on an understanding of connection and relatedness. These principles combine with their
understanding of the unpredictability of the food sources upon which they depend to develop
the attitude towards nonhumans as fellow “persons” (Pierotti 2011; Pierotti and Wildcat
1997a,b). According to one scholar, “the native world should be understood as one of multiple communities of sentient beings in a variety of corporeal forms” (Dreyfus 2008: 21).
One important reason for this difference is that Indigenous peoples lack an immigrant
experience within their memories; they assume that they are truly Indigenous, that is,
born of this land. Native American stories do not deal with the exact time when “historical”
events occurred, since many such events happened so long ago that they exist “on the other
side of memory” (Marshall 1995; Pierotti and Wildcat 2000). The point is that the exact
locality where these events occurred is of paramount importance; this sense of locality is
what ties Indigenous peoples to their local community in both the social and ecological
sense (Basso 1996).
Indigenous people view these connections as being fluid over time. Any factor that
alters a system, including tampering by humans, can cause changes in many unpredictable
ways. Each species is constantly fluctuating, both in behavior and numbers, in response to its
interactions with many other species, and to physical factors in the environment. An Osage
scholar has stated, “The cosmos was in constant motion and consisted of unending, varied
cycles of birth, maturity, old age, death and rebirth. These temporal cycles could not be
stopped or reversed, for ‘nothing in the cosmos moved backward’” (LaFlesche 1995: 30).
When one species declines or disappears from a local environment, humans may notice
its absence. More importantly, other species in the community are even more likely to notice
this absence, because it probably alters their behavior or other ecological relationships in
some way or another. One possible conclusion of this line of thinking is that Indigenous
impressions are also shared by the nonhumans. Indigenous people felt strongly about
their involvement in the natural world; at the same time they felt that they were not fundamentally different from any other species of animal (Deloria 1990; LaFlesche 1995; Pierotti
and Wildcat 2000). An example of this type of thinking can be seen in the discussions concerning the re-introduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park. The argument made
by wildlife biologists and conservationists of European heritage to justify this action was that
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“Of all the species that inhabited Yellowstone when it was first made a park, all but one can
still be found living in the park today. The missing species is the gray wolf” (Pierotti 2011).
This is not true; human beings were also regular inhabitants. Shoshone, Arapaho and other
tribes were an important part of that ecosystem.
Western conservationists do not appear to consider humans as a missing component of
the Yellowstone ecosystem because Western thought persists in defining “wilderness” as
ecosystems without humans present (Gomez-Pompa and Kaus 1992). In fact it is true of
much of Western ecology that its practitioners consider systems where humans are present
to be “disturbed,” rather than “natural.” Indigenous peoples are regularly removed from areas
designated as national parks, forest reserves, wildlife areas, and so on. (Dowie 2005). This is
true not only in North America. For example, in South Africa and Namibia, Indigenous
peoples, such as the !Kung and Juwasi San (“Bushmen”) were removed from National
Parks such as Etosha, which had a profound impact on the behavior and ecology of lions,
Panthera leo, which inhabited the park and had established a long-term symbiotic relationship with the human inhabitants (Marshall-Thomas 1994). In contrast, in both Nepal and
Australia a more enlightened approach, co-management of national parks, has been established, which allows Indigenous peoples to continue to inhabit their traditional homelands
(De Lacy and Lawson 1997; Howitt 2001; Stevens 1997).
Indigenous peoples do not think of the nonhuman elements of their community as constituting “nature” or as “wilderness,” but as part of their social environment (Allen 1986;
Standing Bear 1978). Adherents to this philosophy also do not think of leaving a “house”
to “go into nature,” but instead feel that when they leave their shelter and encounter nonhumans and natural physical features that they are just moving into other parts of their home.
“What we call nature is conceived by Native peoples as an extension of biological man,
therefore a (Native) never feels ‘surrounded by nature’. . . . walking in the forest . . . is not
in nature, but is entirely surrounded by cultural meanings his tradition has given to his external surroundings” (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1996).
In traditional Indigenous communities the importance of the local place in determining
traditions, combined with the concept of nature as home rather than as “other” has profound
implications for Native conceptions of politics and ethics (Basso 1996). Unlike dominant
Western political and ethical paradigms which find knowledge of how human beings
ought to act imbedded in the life of one’s social, that is, human, relationships, Indigenous
peoples find within their concept of community instructions concerning how a person
should behave as a member of a community consisting of many nonhuman persons
(Deloria 1990, 1992, 1999a,b; Druke 1980; Pierotti 2011; Pierotti and Wildcat 1997b,
2000, 2001; Tinker 2004).
The primary focus of creation stories of many tribes placed human beings as among the last
creatures who were created and the youngest of the living families. We were given the ability to do
many things but not specific wisdom about the world. So our job was to learn from other beings
and to pattern ourselves after their behavior. We were to gather knowledge, not disperse it.
Deloria 1999b, p 224
THE CONCEPT OF PERSONHOOD
In contrast to the ideas just described, Western attitudes generally follow the lead of
Aristotle, who defined politics and ethics as exclusively human realms. Thus values,
ethics, and politics exclude all entities but other human beings (Pierotti and Wildcat
The Concept of Personhood
73
2000). Therefore, respect and concern for their good are not owed to nonhumans and landforms. By Indigenous standards Aristotle’s notion of community membership was overly
limited because in Indigenous communities politics and ethics are not limited only to
human beings (Allen 1986; Deloria 1990; Martin 1978; Salmon 2000).
The inclusion of other living beings and natural objects into the category of “persons,”
which includes human beings, requires the development of concepts of politics and ethics
that incorporate these other community members (Martin 1999; Pierotti and Wildcat
2000). The line between human and animals (and plants) is so lightly drawn in American
Indian cultures that it ceases to exist at certain points (Bruchac 2003; Taylor 1986).
Throughout Native American cultures, there is a broad commonality of beliefs about animals
in which human and nonhuman are bonded closely and are part of one community involved
with one another in terms of empowerment and emotional interactions (Anderson 1996;
Barsh 2000; Deloria 1990; Martin 1999; Martinez 1994).
Such beliefs lead to what has been described as “kincentric” ecology, in which humans
and nonhumans are viewed as part of an ecological assemblage that is treated as an extended
family sharing ancestry and origins (Salmón 2000). Laguna Pueblo people could not have
survived in the arid Southwestern U.S. without their recognition that they were “sisters
and brothers to badger, antelope, clay, yucca, and sun” (Silko 1996). To Northwest Coast
peoples, “Fish, bears, wolves, and eagles were part of the kinship system, part of the community, part of the family structure. Modern urbanite ecologists see these as Other, and
romanticize them, but for a Northwest Coast Indian, an alien human was more Other than
a local octopus or wolf” (Anderson 1996). The Raramuri (Tarahumara) people of northern
Mexico use the term iwigara to indicate the way in which they are bound to the land, animals,
and winds of their Sierra Madre home. Iwigara indicates the interconnectedness and integration of all life in the Sierra Madres, both physical and spiritual (Salmón 2000).
Another illustration is clan names and totems, which reflect the existence of covenants
between certain human families and specific animals (Deloria 1990; Pierotti and Wildcat
1997a). Totem is derived from the Anishinaabe word ototeman, which translates roughly
as “my relative” (Bruchac 2003: 160). These nonhumans are connected to families over
prolonged periods of time, and offer their assistance and guidance during each generation
of humans (Martin 1999; Pierotti and Wildcat 2000). If you have a certain creature as a
totem you are not allowed to hunt or kill it (Bruchac 2003), which may explain why in
some cultures, for example, the Pacific Northwest, only predatory species are used as clan
signifiers (Pierotti 2011). The relationships implied by clan membership have implications
that might make adherents to the dominant culture uneasy or uncomfortable. To be a member
of Eagle, Wolf, Bear, Deer, or Wasp clan means that you are kin to these other persons; they
are your relatives. Ecological connectedness is culturally and ceremonially acknowledged
through clan names, totems, and ceremonies (Martin 1999; Pierotti and Wildcat 1997a,
1999b). In Native American stories it is established that animal- and plant-persons existed
before human-persons (Deloria 1999b; Pierotti and Wildcat 1997a). Thus, these kin exist
as elders and, much as do human elders, they function as teachers and respected members
of the community (see the quote from Deloria 1999b above).
In Indigenous traditions, humans typically live in mutual-aid relationships with nonhumans (Barsh 2000). If humans eat or otherwise use nonhumans, they are empowered by that
relationship, which leads to mutual respect. Many nonhumans have powers far beyond the
capabilities of ordinary humans, and are able to move with ease through worlds impassable
to humans (Anderson 1996). Birds move through the air, which is off limits to most humans,
and fish and marine mammals move through water in a manner that humans can only imitate
in a clumsy fashion.
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One logical assumption following from such understanding is that if nonhumans are
“persons,” they also can have cognitive abilities, which would mean that they should recognize the danger of being hunted. Thus if a nonhuman was caught, it was assumed to involve
some element of choice on their part (Anderson 1996). This led to the concept of the prey
“giving itself to you.” This presumed gift required gratitude (thanks), as well as respectful
treatment of the body of the nonhuman on the part of the human taking its life (Martin
1999; Pierotti and Wildcat 1999a; Tanner 1979).
Although the prey may not truly give up its life voluntarily, this assumption is an important guiding principle of the rituals that ensured that hunters and fishers treated their take with
respect, so as not to offend the prey, in order to ensure that the prey would not abandon them
(Pierotti and Wildcat 1999a). “If we do not show respect to the bear when we kill him, he will
not return” (traditional Mistassini Cree, cited in Bruchac 2003: 155).
ATTITUDES TOWARDS PREDATORS
This last statement illustrates a major difference between Western and Indigenous ways of
understanding the natural world, that is, their attitudes towards and response to predatory
organisms, such as wolves, bears, big cats, crocodilians, and sharks. In essence this can
be summed up by the observation that, despite their tendency to consume large quantities
of animal protein, followers of the Western philosophical tradition tend to regard themselves
as prey. As a consequence, individuals who follow this tradition seem to fear and often try to
exterminate any potential predator of which they are aware. In contrast, followers of
Indigenous philosophical traditions tend to regard themselves as predators and show respect
for the nonhumans who share their ecological role (Pierotti 2011; Pierotti and Wildcat
1997b; Schlesier 1987).
To anyone who doubts that this characterization of humans as prey is a crucial aspect of
Western understanding, including followers of the Western scientific tradition, consider the
recent work by one of the most prominent investigators of the behavior of predatory mammals, Hans Kruuk, who states, “I will start at the darkest, most horrifying and negative side
of our relationship with (carnivores), that is their predation on us. They can be very dangerous enemies” (Kruuk 2002: 55; emphasis added).
This Western perception seems to emerge from the Christian tradition; with Jesus Christ
being identified as “the lamb of God.” Thus, the “savior of mankind” is regarded as a prey
organism to be sacrificed. It is telling that the individual upon whom much of the moral foundation of contemporary Western society is based is perceived as equivalent to a prey organism, which also leads to the view of his disciples and followers as helpless creatures.
Christian symbolism is full of shepherd, sheep, and flock metaphors, for example, the
Good Shepherd, reference to a Christian congregation as a “flock,” sinners as “lost lambs
or sheep,” and so on. This metaphor can also be seen in the Hebraic tradition in the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and when he decides not to do this, substituting a
lamb. Christians are also told how early adherents to their faith were “fed to the lions” by the
Romans (Pierotti 2011).
One result of this tendency to identify with prey is that the relationship between
Europeans and wolves is best described as a campaign of unimaginable viciousness directed
at wolves by Europeans and their descendants (Coleman 2004; McIntyre 1995). This is in
direct contrast to Indigenous attitudes that recognize how much nonhuman predators are
like humans in their behavior and attitudes. The Cheyenne and Blackfeet developed their creation stories around wolves who served as their guides and instructors. Animals that acted as
Attitudes Towards Predators
75
hunters were in turn emulated by the human hunters (LaFlesche 1995: 132; Marshall 1995;
McClintock 1910; Schleidt 1998; Schlesier 1987: 82). Cheyenne hunters would call wolves
to their kill, or set part of the meat aside for wolves, because there are stories about how
people in an earlier time fed themselves from kills made by wolves during a time of great
hardship (Schlesier 1987).
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, in North America humans and wolves enjoyed a relatively benign relationship between the two species (see also Marshall 1995; Schlesier 1987).
There are stories of Numic hunters finding wolf dens and stopping to play with the pups,
while the parent wolves observed from a short distance (Wallace and Hoebel 1948). In
Shoshone, the name for gray wolf is Numuna (Ramsey 1977: 231), which is similar to
the name some Numic peoples use for themselves, for example, Nuhmuhnuh (Comanche
Language and Cultural Preservation Committee 2003). Lakota people tell of wolves that
encountered a bison killed by humans; after sniffing the arrows, they looked at the
humans then walked away (Marshall 1995: 12).
Identification with predators makes Indigenous people feel confident and that they have
control over their environment; after all, they are the close relatives and cultural descendants
of the most powerful entities in this ecosystem (Barsh 2000, MS; McClintock 1910;
Marshall 1995; Martin 2000; Pierotti and Wildcat 1997b, 2000; Tanner 1979).
As Indigenous peoples evolved culturally and ecologically, their survival both as individuals and as cultures depended on their ability to take the lives of other beings. To be an
effective hunter required observation of both predators and prey, each of which had at least
one ability or characteristic that set it apart from other species and enhanced their chances of
survival as individuals (Barsh 2000; Marshall 1995; Nerburn 1994). Humans lacked horns,
teeth, claws, and the speed and strength of many other species. Instead they had understanding and language, which allowed them to pass knowledge directly from one generation to the
next. “American Indians view reality from the perspective of the one species that has the
capability to reflect on the meaning of things” (Deloria 1999b: 130). These peoples survived
and prospered by paying careful attention, learning about the strengths and weaknesses of
the other organisms in their community, and developing rituals and traditions related to
this knowledge that symbolized the importance of the taking of nonhuman lives.
The essence of Native attitudes towards other life forms is “kinship relations in which no
element of life can go unattached from human society,” which manifests itself in “kinship
cycles of responsibility that exist between our species and other species” (Deloria 1999b:
131). “Every species finds meaning in this larger scheme of things and that is why other
species are willing to feed and clothe (humans)” (Deloria 1999b, p 149). If nonhumans
were understood to have “characteristics similar or equivalent to those of humans, how
were humans to understand what it meant to kill animals and consume their flesh?”
(Harrod 2000: 46). An Inupiat hunter has stated that,
The greatest peril of life lies in the fact that human food consists entirely of souls. All the creatures
we have to kill and eat, all those that we strike down and destroy to make clothes for ourselves,
have souls, like we have, that do not perish with the body, and which must therefore be propitiated
lest they should revenge themselves on us for taking their bodies.
Ivaluardjuk, cited in Rasmussen 1929
Combined with the unpredictability of environmental conditions, this moral dilemma is
a defining element of Native American religious thought. Many rituals and traditions stem
from practices developed specifically to provide an ethically satisfying resolution to the
taking of other lives, and many contemporary religious practices of Indian people stem
from rituals originally developed for hunting, for example, pipe ceremonies and the sweat
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lodge, that have been transformed into practices that address the spiritual needs of contemporary Indians (Harrod 2000; Pierotti 2011).
Wolves, cougars, bears, and others were fellow hunters from whom much could be
learned. One important aspect of including nonhumans as community members is that it
allowed Native Americans to identify with and respect predators, since they knew how difficult it is to take the lives of other individuals (Brightman, 1993; Harrod 2000; Marshall
1995; Marshall-Thomas 1994; Tanner 1979). In this intellectual and spiritual tradition, predation is recognized as an activity that does not involve hostile intent.
Given this heritage, the reliance of plains tribes on wolves as models is not surprising.
The weapons of wolves were “formidable, but the first people saw that they were of little use
without endurance, patience and perseverance . . . qualities the first peoples could develop in
themselves” (Marshall 1995). These peoples felt their connection to wolves was strong
because wolves had even instructed them in methods of hunting (Barsh MS; Schlesier
1987). Wolves were respected for their alertness, endurance, and their ability to be part of
a close-knit group, but also to function well when they were alone (LaFlesche 2005:
132). Leaders of war parties were “spoken of as wolves, because they are men of great fortitude . . . who, like wolves, are ever alert, active and tireless . . . who can resist the pangs of
hunger and the craving for sleep . . .” (LaFlesche 2005: 132). Most important, however, was
that if people were to emulate the wolf, like the wolf, they also had to exist to serve their own
social community and the local ecological community (Marshall 1995).
These cooperative, even “friendly” relationships between species serve as spiritual
acknowledgement of the realization that no single organism can exist without the connections it shares with many other organisms. Eating parts of other organisms demonstrates
empirically that they are made of the same materials of which you are made (Pierotti and
Wildcat 1997b, 2000, 2001). Christianity employs a similar principle in its communion
rituals as a way of establishing links between their “savior” and contemporary humans.
Recognizing connectedness did not mean, however, that animals or plants should not be
taken or used for food or clothing (Taylor 1986, 1992). This recognition led to ethical
and spiritual conclusions based on the concept of respect: (a) lives of other organisms
should not be taken frivolously, and (b) other life forms exist on their own terms, and
were not put here only for human use (Pierotti and Wildcat 2000, 2001). By giving up its
life the animal makes a profound sacrifice, which requires acknowledgement and gratitude
(cf. Marshall-Thomas 1994).
Indigenous people experienced other creatures in their roles as parents, as offspring,
and ultimately as persons within a shared community. One indication of this mutuality
was that it was always possible that the nonhumans upon whom the human culture depended
could go away. Realizing this provides an explanation for First Salmon ceremonies, the
prayers and thanks to deer and bison, and the treatment of bear and wolf as honored teachers
who helped humans figure out how to feed and care for themselves (Pierotti 2011).
THE NATURE OF CREATORS
In Indigenous belief systems, creators or transformers are typically nonhuman entities, who
are almost always represented by a nonhuman species that is considered important to the
local ecological community (Pierotti 2011; Pierotti and Wildcat 1997a), which reinforces
relatedness and connectedness. Significant nonhuman species are considered to be the originators of cultural traditions and sometimes of human beings themselves. This is exemplified
by the treatment of Raven as the creator figure in cultural traditions of the Pacific Northwest
The Nature of Creators
77
and Alaska (Anderson 1996; Nelson 1983) and by the treatment of Wolf and Coyote as creator and trickster figures respectively in the Plains and the Intermountain West (Bright 1993;
Buller 1983; Harrod 2000; Marshall 1995).
This employment of nonhumans as creator figures for human cultural and spiritual
traditions raises an important philosophical question, that is, “How does it change the
worldview of a people if the entity that is given responsibility for creating their culture
is not a human, or even humanlike?” Not only is the creator nonhuman, but part of the
ecological community.
One consequence of viewing your creator as a nonhuman (animal or plant) is that it
seems very unlikely that humans living under such cultural traditions would be troubled
by the idea that humans, including themselves, came from organisms that would not be
recognized as human and that existed before human-persons (Pierotti 2011; Pierotti and
Wildcat 1997a). This is an important point in the current debate over evolution, where
one major issue is whether humans should be considered as having come from organisms
that are not human, or alternatively if they were specially created in the image of an anthropomorphic creator figure, such as the Christian God.
If the entity you consider to be your creator represents a species of animal or plant that
you are likely to encounter in your immediate environment and during your daily activities,
this functions to maintain respect and affection for individuals of this species, as well as for
the natural world and its other inhabitants. In addition, this means that the creator is internal
to the system standing in opposition to Western concepts, which assume that the creator is
external to the system. This in turn reinforces the idea of connectedness, through acknowledgment of a member of the ecological community as the originator of the local cultural tradition (Pierotti 2011).
To function as a creator it is necessary to exist prior to your creation. Thus, it is clear that
Indigenous Americans were aware that other nonhuman species existed in the world before
humans did. In Rock Cree cosmogony, animals were recognized to have existed before
human beings, and humans were known to come from animals during the regression of
the earth (Brightman 1993). In the Lakota tradition it is recognized that “Sugmanitu
Tanka Oyate (wolves) were a nation long before human beings realized and declared themselves a nation” (Manuel Iron Cloud, cited in McIntyre 1995).
The Western monotheistic religious tradition posits a creator that is human in both form
and thought. This creator, or god, is typically assumed to have human limitations and human
values, but exists external to the system, which it created. Many followers of the Western
philosophical tradition assume that if God does not think like them, then he cannot think
at all, and therefore does not exist (Davies 1994: 77 – 78). This conundrum reveals the
limits of the Western philosophical tradition, and why fundamentalist Christians have
resorted to the idea of “intelligent design,” which seems to assume that the creator functions
as a master engineer (Petto and Godfrey 2007). As a thought exercise, imagine a creator that
is not human or even remotely human-like in its thought patterns. This entity would not see
humans as superior to or above other life forms because all life forms are its children. In this
worldview, the world undergoes many changes but the creator, which is part of the system,
experiences these changes. During times of major environmental change some life forms
may become extinct, while others survive even through extreme changes in environmental
conditions. The life forms that persist, either as individuals or populations, are not “favored”
or “chosen,” they are simply the organisms able to survive and reproduce in the changed
environment (Carroll 2006; Gould 2002; Kirschner and Gerhart 2005). Those that do not
persist return to the earth and their components will reappear as part of new forms of life.
Thus, it is environmental change that helps to “shape” the life forms to come, so these
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changes can be described as drivers of the process of “creation.” This way of viewing the
world is entirely consistent with Indigenous stories and ceremonies, which acknowledge
the existence of a changeable world, in which those changes are often unpredictable
(Pierotti 2011).
Humans are included among the life forms that suffer the consequences of changing
environmental conditions. As an example of how an Indigenous perspective views the functioning of and relationships between the creator and life forms (including humans) within
ecosystems, let us examine the 1911 statement of Okute (Shooter), a Teton Lakota.
Animals and plants are taught by Wakan Tanka (the Lakota creative force) what they are to do.
Wakan Tanka teaches the birds to make nests, yet the nests of all birds are not alike. Wakan Tanka
gives them merely the outline. Some make better nests than others. . . . Some animals also take
better care of their young than others. . . . All birds, even those of the same species, are not alike,
and it is the same with animals, and with human beings. The reason Wakan Tanka does not
make two birds, or animals, or human beings exactly alike is because each is placed here to be an
independent individual and to rely upon itself . . . From my boyhood I have observed leaves,
trees, and grass, and I have never found two alike. They may have a general likeness, but on
examination I have found that they differ slightly. It is the same with animals. . . . It is the same
with human beings, there is some place which is best adapted to each . . . An animal depends upon
the natural conditions around it. If the buffalo were here today, I think they would be very
different from the buffalo of the old days because all the natural conditions have changed. They
would not find the same food, nor the same surroundings. . . . We see the same change in our
ponies . . . It is the same with the Indians. . . .
McLuhan 1971: 18–19; emphasis added
To a person familiar with ecological principles this statement by Okute is a concise summary of individual variation and microevolution resulting from environmental changes.
Indigenous cultures were aware that the world changed and that often when it did, some
species, or even human cultures, were unable to persist or thrive. A powerful example of
this attitude can be seen in this story of an exchange between human and nonhuman from
Anishinaabeg writer Louise Erdrich:
I spoke to the wolf, asking my own question: “Wolf” I said, “Your people are hunted from the
air and poisoned on the ground and killed on sight . . . and stuffed in cages and almost wiped
out. How is it that you going on living with such sorrow? How do you go on without turning
around and destroying yourselves, as so many of us Anishinaabeg have done under similar
circumstances?”
And the wolf answered, not in words, but with a continuation of his stare. “We live because we
live.” He did not ask questions. He did not give reasons. And I understood him then. Wolves
accept the life they are given. They do not look around them and wish for a different life, or shorten
their lives resenting the humans, or even fear them any more than is appropriate. They are efficient.
They deal with what they encounter and then go on. Minute by minute. One day to the next.
Erdrich 2005: 120 –121
Many Indigenous cultures survived and a few have even thrived, but one major change
in the environment may have been particularly destructive. The impact of contagious diseases introduced to the Americas as part of the European invasions apparently led many
Indigenous people to feel as if the world had turned against them (Martin 1978; Pierotti
2004). This social and demographic devastation was probably enhanced by the apparent success of Europeans, because they did not suffer as much from the diseases they had brought
with them. This combination of factors may have led many Indigenous people to abandon
their own spiritual traditions and accept European religions and spiritual traditions.
References
79
The word “creation” can be used to refer to various events, including the origins of life
itself, which probably happened several times (Barton et al. 2007). The term can also be
employed to refer to the origins of new forms of life in response to environmental changes
(Gould 2002). With regard to the origin of life, and of the universe, we will never have
unquestionable proof of what took place. Evidence can be gathered to support one perspective or another, but absolute proof will probably always be lacking, which is why the origin
of life is not really an evolutionary question (Pierotti 2011). The key point on the origin of
life is that regardless of exactly how it happened, it took place billions of years ago. Since
modern humans did not exist until the last few hundred thousand years, whatever the creative
force was at the beginning of life it certainly was not human. In consequence, I look to the
one entity that I can be sure was in existence at that time, the Earth itself. To me the Earth,
with all of its changeable faces and moods, serves as the most obvious creator imaginable;
one that should be acceptable to all peoples and cultural traditions.
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Chapter
6
Ethnozoology
EUGENE S. HUNN
University of Washington, Seattle, WA
DEFINITION OF TERMS AND SCOPE OF THE FIELD
83
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ETHNOZOOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS
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CASE STUDIES AND THEORETICAL ISSUES
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FOLK BIOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION AND NOMENCLATURE
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GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CLASSIFICATION AND NOMENCLATURE
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“THE HUNTING HYPOTHESIS” VERSUS “WOMAN THE GATHERER”
87
THE DIETARY ROLE OF MEAT IN FARMING SOCIETIES
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THE ROLE OF ANIMALS AMONG PASTORALISTS
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CONSERVATION
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ANIMALS ARE “GOOD TO THINK”
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ANIMISM
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REFERENCES
94
DEFINITION OF TERMS AND SCOPE OF THE FIELD
Ethnozoology may be defined as the study of local knowledge of fauna, and the culturally
mediated relationships between communities of people and the other animals of their
environment. Local knowledge begins with animal nomenclature and classification in the
local idiom. That is the foundation for local knowledge of the behavior and ecology of
fauna and the application of that knowledge in people’s interactions with animals, domestic
and wild. Cultural relationships include symbolic and spiritual connections demonstrated
in myth, ritual, art, and philosophical speculation. I would stress relationships of human
communities with their local faunas, mediated by cultural understandings. This avoids the
suggestion that “cultures” are the responsible agents. Ethnozoology includes, for example,
ethnoornithology, ethnoichthyology, ethnoentomology, and ethnomalacology (Meehan
1982). R.E. Johannes’s Words of the Lagoon (1981)—a sensitive account of local
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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fishermen’s knowledge of the life of Palauan reefs, lagoons, and adjacent seas—was
informed by the author’s professional interest in tropical marine ecology. Ethnoentomological studies have been dominated by studies of edible insects (Ruddle 1973).
Principles of classification and nomenclature apply generally to living kinds, though
onomatopoeia is particularly prominent in the names of birds and frogs. Some ecological
issues contrast ethnozoology and ethnobotany. Hunting has long been an obsession of theorists of human evolution. William Laughlin characterized hunting as the “integrating biobehavior system” defining the human evolutionary path (1968). However, this ignored the
economic contributions of “woman the gatherer” (Dahlberg 1975). The relative dietary contributions of plant versus animal foods under various subsistence regimes remains a critically
important issue with respect to our understanding of human nature and of the evolving
human ecological role.
Animals of all sorts have held a special emotional, symbolic, and spiritual relationship
to humans, most likely a consequence of the capacity for complex and rapid movement that
most land animals share with humans, suggestive of an internal dynamic of will and intelligence difficult to perceive in plants (or in sedentary animals such as corals). Thus animals
play a disproportionately large role in sacred stories, such as the exploits of Coyote and
Raven in Native American mythic narrative (Ramsey 1977).
Ethnobotanical studies of medicinal plants far outnumber studies of the medicinal
values of animal products. Plants have evolved biochemical defenses against herbivores
and attractants to exploit mobile animals for pollination and seed distribution (Johns 1990).
Ethnozoological methodology poses distinct practical problems for collecting and curating voucher specimens. Plants such as palms, cacti, and agaves pose particular problems,
but nothing comparable to collecting a voucher specimen of a blue whale, polar bear, or
ostrich. In lieu of such efforts, ethnozoologists may make do with photographs, sound
recordings (for birds and amphibians, see Hunn 1992), or skeletal material from hunters’
caches. Entomological vouchers require nets, killing bottles, pins, boxes for hard-bodied
specimens, and vials of alcohol for soft-bodied species. It may prove particularly difficult
to find reliable repositories for such specimens and taxonomists willing and able to determine the scientific identities of one’s invertebrate samples. Nevertheless, without some
means of securely documenting the scientific identity of the referents of local names, an
ethnozoological investigation will remain of strictly limited significance.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ETHNOZOOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS
The term “ethnozoology” first appeared in print in a note entitled “Aboriginal American
zoötechny” by Otis Mason (1899). Mason defined the field as “zoology of the region
as recounted by the savage” (1899: 50). This invidious distinction between “savages” and
modern civilized folk is a recurrent theme in definitions not only of ethnozoology but of
ethnobotany and ethnobiology more generally (Castetter 1978; Clément 1998; Nolan and
Turner, this volume). “Savage” and “primitive”, being inaccurate, are replaced now by
“Indigenous”, “traditional”, “subsistence-based”, or “local” to describe the societies in question. Moreover, immigrant and urban communities too have their ethnozoologies.
Scholarly interest in what we now define as ethnozoology dates to antiquity. Herodotus
wrote:
The cats on their decease are taken to the city of Bubastis, where they are embalmed, after which
they are buried in certain sacred repositories. The dogs are interred in the cities to which they
belong, also in sacred burial-places. The same practice obtains with respect to the ichneumons
Case Studies and Theoretical Issues
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[a kind of civet]; the hawks and shrew-mice, on the contrary, are conveyed to the city of Buto for
burial, and the ibises to Hermopolis. . . . (Rawlinson 1928: 104)
The first comprehensive ethnozoological ethnography is that of the Tewa of New
Mexico (Henderson and Harrington 1914), a surprisingly modern treatment. Wyman and
Bailey’s Navajo Indian Ethnoentomology (1964) is a model application of ethnobiological
methods. R.N.H. Bulmer’s ethnozoological researches in the Papua New Guinea highlands,
particularly in his collaboration with the Kalam scholar Ian Saem Majnep, remains the most
sensitive account of a traditional zoological science (Majnep and Bulmer 1977, 2007).
Amadeo Rea’s “salvage” ethnography of Northern Piman ethnozoology demonstrates
how much can be learnt from an apprenticeship with knowledgeable Indian elders combined
with meticulous reading and sophisticated interpretation of ethnohistorical, archival, and
linguistic sources (Rea 1998, 2007). The present author’s Tzeltal Mayan and Zapotec ethnozoological work was inspired by both (Hunn 1977, 2008). What all these efforts have in
common is the felicitous combination of a fascination with animals and a deep respect for
Indigenous people. A geographic sampler of detailed ethnozoological ethnographies
might include Waddy’s (1982, 1988) comprehensive ethnobiology of the Groote Eylandt
of Australia’s Northern Territory, Ellen’s (1993a,b) analysis of Nuaulu animal classification
on Seram, Indonesia, Forth’s (2004) ethno-ornithological studies with the Nage of eastern
Indonesia, Griaule’s cosmic conversations with the Dogon hunter Ogotemmêli (Griaule
1965, cf. Walter 1991), Descola’s (1994) Achuar ethnography, and Anderson’s study of
Yucatec Mayan farmers (Anderson and Medina Tzuc 2005).
The anthology Man, Culture, and Animals edited by Anthony Leeds and Andrew
P. Vayda (1965) represents the centrality of ethnozoological concern for students of
human ecology. This tradition of investigation continued in studies focused on particular
ecological issues, such as controversies over the nature of Indigenous conservation among
subsistence hunters and the role of animistic beliefs in hunting practice. Outstanding
contributions in this tradition include Tanner’s Bringing Home Animals (1979), Nelson’s
Make Prayers to the Raven (1983), and Brightman’s Grateful Prey: Rock Cree Human –
Animal Relationships (1973). Analyses of hunting from an evolutionary ecological
perspective include Smith’s Inujjuamiut Foraging Strategies (1991) and Alvard’s
studies of Amazonian hunting strategies (1995). For a critical evaluation of this
approach see Ingold’s essay “The optimal forager and economic man” (2000); see also
Pierotti, Chapter 5.
CASE STUDIES AND THEORETICAL ISSUES
Folk Biological Classification and Nomenclature
Ethnozoology may contribute to the clarification of a profound philosophical issue: is nature
“natural” or a cultural construct? One corollary of a radical cultural – relativist position is
that “species” have no objective reality. If this were the case one would not expect substantial
agreement with regard to the recognition of species as basic elements of our natural environment across cultures that have no common historical connection. Such a conclusion is
false. Diamond (1966) studied the ornithological expertise of the Fore of highland Papua
New Guinea. Bulmer (1974), writing of the neighboring Kalam, analyzed the complex symbolism of the cassowary, its mythic partnership with the first humans, and the special hunting
and dietary restriction accorded the cassowary as an extraordinary creature. The Kalam and
the Fore classify bats as “birds”. Diamond’s study has since been replicated in a number of
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carefully documented systematic ethnozoological studies, though in most cases the degree of
1:1 correspondence of locally named “species” to Western scientific species is somewhat
less than the 85% of the Fore. For example, Tenejapa Tzeltal Maya bird species correspond
1:1 in 79% of the cases (Hunn 1977: 81). In every case, however, local community traditions
recognize and name “natural kinds” that reproduce “each after its own kind”—in a word,
biological species.
Species are abstractions inferred from observations of thousands of individual organisms, each unique yet exhibiting “family resemblances” and interacting with one another
in characteristic ways. The Fore recognize two levels of classification in their distinction
between “large names” and “small names” such as iré, the white-spotted scrub-thrush
(Eupetes leucostictus), included as a kind of ‘bird’. This distinction seems implicit in the
application of binomial names, as in the case of Tenejapa Tzeltal robins (i.e., species of
the thrush genus Turdus). Here up to five kinds of toht may be recognized, e.g., bats’il
toht, literally ‘real robin’ for the prototypical Rufous-Backed Thrush (Turdus rufitorques)
of the central highland forests of Chiapas and k’an toht ‘yellow robin’ for the ClayColored Thrush (Turdus grayi), common at lower elevations. All are then construed to be
kinds of the life-form mut ‘bird’ which in turn is encompassed by chan-balam, or
‘animal’ (literally ‘snake-and-jaguar’; Hunn 1977: 180 – 181). This hierarchy of named categories represents an incipient manifestation of Linnaean taxonomic reasoning. Recognition
and naming of natural kinds or species is a human universal. So also is the recognition that
diversity of species reflects a hierarchy of degrees of family resemblance (Brown 1979),
anticipating the Darwinian understanding of species as the end products of a process of
descent with modification.
General Principles of Classification and Nomenclature
Tzeltal Maya farmers of Tenejapa, Chiapas, Mexico, recognize 448 kinds of animals, including 230 kinds of invertebrates (Hunn 1977: 81). The number of invertebrate species in
their home territory is unknown but would number many thousands. Thus the correspondence between Tzeltal “species” and Linnaean species is far from perfect in the case of
invertebrates. We may attribute this to the highly selective attention the Tzeltal Maya pay
to invertebrates, due in part to their small size. Yet when their curiosity is aroused they
are quite capable of systematic precision worthy of the world’s leading entomologists.
Social hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps) fascinate the Tenejapa Tzeltal Maya. They
recognize 43 kinds of ants, bees, and wasps and in many instances their categories correspond very well to the genera and species of the academic entomologist. Comparison
goes beyond the naming of species to the recognition that patterns of behavior may provide
the most reliable clues to the identity of species. One of my Tenejapan guides illustrated
each type of wasp by drawing the shape and location of their nests (cf. Wilson 1971;
Hunn 1977: 267, Fig. 5.197).
People living close to the natural world pay close attention to empirical reality.
Ethnozoology shows that such peoples develop understandings beyond what is immediately
relevant for survival (Berlin 1992). That is, their knowledge is not strictly utilitarian, however selective it may be. While it is noteworthy that the Tzeltal and Yucatec Maya carefully
delineate species of ants, bees, and wasps, they are far less precise in their classification of
butterflies and moths, though one might argue that butterflies and moths are an equally conspicuous and diverse element of the local natural environment. Why this contrast? It seems
inescapable that ants, bees, and wasps have a far greater practical impact on the everyday
lives of Tenejapanecos than do butterflies and moths, suggesting that utilitarianism plays
Case Studies and Theoretical Issues
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a role in directing cultural attention to natural diversity (Hunn 1982a). Yet the “practical
significance” of ants, bees, and wasps is not a simple matter of filling one’s stomach, as
some would have it, but must include considerations of danger posed by poisonous insects,
competition from insects capable of defoliating one’s crops, and even the symbolic power
of recognizing an affinity with a powerful insect society, as in Darrell Posey’s analysis of
Kayapo ethnoentomology (Posey 1981).
A fourth study of the empirical acumen of native peoples is the “ethnoethology”—
the knowledge of animal behavior—of the !Kung San hunters of the Kalahari of
southern Africa. A professional wildlife biologist, Nicolas Blurton-Jones, and the anthropologist Melvin Konner consulted groups of San hunters at their camps in the Kalahari on
the animals they encountered while hunting (Blurton-Jones and Konner 1976). BlurtonJones posed questions of interest to academic zoologists. Konner translated these queries
into the local San language. The hunters’ debates in response were recorded, transcribed,
and translated back into English. Blurton-Jones judged the San hunters’ knowledge dependable in most cases, noting a few instances in which the hunters’ opinions were at variance
with “scientific fact”, as was known at the time. For example, San hunters agreed that
lions were meticulous eaters, rejecting meat that had been spoiled by feces from a ruptured
lower intestine. As proof they noted having observed that such contaminated carcasses
had been abandoned by the lions. This conclusion was subsequently corroborated by
professional biologists.
Blurton-Jones was impressed by the fact that the San freely challenged their fellow hunters, questioning the basis of a judgment at odds with their own experience. In this respect
they acted in the best tradition of academic science, carefully evaluating judgments with
regard to empirical evidence and the logic of argument. Nor were San hunters slavish positivists. Many of their generalizations about animal behavior rested on inferences from signs
such as tracks and spoor rather than direct observation, but such inferences were carefully
reasoned. A classic ethnographic film by John Marshall, “The Hunters” (1957), follows
four San men as they first chase, then wound, then track, and ultimate kill a giraffe, a
hunt lasting three days. Their lethal weapon was a diminutive bow and arrow, the arrow
poisoned by a paste elaborately processed from the larvae of a species of beetle found
beneath the roots of one particular savannah shrub. To track the giraffe required recognizing
the individual tracks of the wounded animal. The hunters were thus able to anticipate its
movements, intercept it, and finally subdue it. The animal was butchered as befits a being
of great power, with respect mixed with joy in anticipation of the feast soon to be shared.
Blurton-Jones and Konner showed the San to be systematic and skeptical observers of
the natural world, scientists in the best tradition of natural history. However, the authors
judge the San as lacking in theoretical sophistication, because they appeared to have little
interest in such questions as “why” lions or elephants or kudus acted as they did. Rather,
the San were satisfied to observe simply that lions act like lions and kudus like kudus,
because that is their nature.
“The Hunting Hypothesis” versus “Woman the Gatherer”
Animals play key dietary roles in many human societies, past and present, from Arctic
and Kalahari hunters, East African cattle pastoralists, Palauan fisher folk, New Guinea
and Hindu farmers, to modern American fast-food fans. Contemporary culinary habits
have affected our judgment as to the proper role of meat in human evolution. The orthodox
position held that hunting was the evolutionary innovation that set our species apart from our
great ape relations. This position was forcefully articulated by William S. Laughlin in his
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contribution to the Man the Hunter volume, “Hunting: an integrating biobehavior system
and its evolutionary importance” (Laughlin 1968), the proceedings of the first of an ongoing
series of biennial conferences by students of so-called hunter-gatherer societies. Robert
Ardrey, a prolific journalistic popular writer, promoted The Hunting Hypothesis (1976),
the title of the last of his four books elaborating his reading of the anthropological literature
on human evolution. The hunting hypothesis proved misleading in several respects, first in
suggesting that man the hunter was the key player in the evolutionary transition from ape to
human. This ignored the economic contributions of women, which have been shown to be on
a par with that of men. Richard Lee’s data on the division of labor by sex among the !Kung
San of the Kalahari showed clearly that vegetal foods gathered by women—notably the rich
mongongo nut (Schinziophyton [Ricinodendron] rautanenii (Schinz) Radcl.-Sm.)—represented well over 50% of both calories and protein in the San diet (Lee 1979: 271).
Women were not limited to childbearing and child rearing duties. They worked as long
and as hard as men in support of their families and communities (Lee 1979: 260, 313 ff ).
Aborigines of Australia’s Western Desert derive some 80% of their dietary energy from
plant foods harvested primarily by women, while Aborigines of the northern Australian
coast depend heavily on shellfish, likewise gathered by women (Meehan 1982). The
Columbia Plateau Indians of western North America—renowned for their prodigious
salmon harvests—procured an estimated 65% of dietary calories from women’s harvests
of tuberous roots and berries (Hunn 1981). Only at high latitudes does hunting contribute
the bulk of dietary essentials, yet even the Inuit and Athabaskan hunting communities of
northern North America depended heavily on women’s contributions in butchering meat,
harvesting berries and greens, making and maintaining clothing, and not infrequently
doing their own hunting.
The hunting hypothesis has misled also in conflating homicidal violence and warfare
with the killing of prey by hunters. A careful ethnographic account of hunting by the
Koyukon of the Koyukuk River in north central Alaska clearly demonstrates that hunting
is first of all an intellectual pursuit depending on the hunter knowing his prey intimately
and his local territory in fine detail (Lorenz 1966; Nelson 1969, 1973, 1983). Hunting furthermore requires great patience and is best pursued in a spirit of humility. Hunting seals at
their breathing holes in the winter sea ice on Hudson’s Bay provides a powerful example, as
in the film, “At the Winter Sea Ice Camp” (Balikci et al. 1967) documenting the last traditional winter hunting camp of the Netsilik Eskimo.
For many hunting peoples eating alone or refusing to share one’s food is morally repugnant and negatively sanctioned. Traditional subsistence hunters kill because they must. They
show respect to the spirits; exhibiting arrogance or pride is punished by loss of hunting success and thus potential disaster. It is worth noting that the gathering of shellfish and plant
foods and medicines—typically the province of women—likewise requires extensive
empirical knowledge of hundreds of local species and a comprehensive appreciation of
the local landscape. Thus arguments that hunting has driven the evolution of human intelligence rest on many false premises, including the one that only men, not women, should have
evolved the cognitive capacities that set humans apart from other primates (e.g., Calvin
1983; Laughlin 1968).
The Dietary Role of Meat in Farming Societies
Some theorists have elaborated on the notion that humans evolved as meat-eating primates
to argue that diets deficient in animal protein may be pathological. The most extreme version
Case Studies and Theoretical Issues
89
of this view is Michael Harner’s explanation for Aztec human sacrifice as a response to a
shortage of animal protein. Harner argued that ritual cannibalism, said to have been an
integral part of the Aztec human sacrificial complex, was intended to satisfy this craving
for flesh (Harner 1977). Harner’s argument has been widely and effectively discredited
(e.g., Garn 1979; Hunn 1982b; Ortiz de Montellano 1978; Price 1978). Dietary protein
may be obtained from sources other than big game, not only from fish and invertebrates
but also from vegetal foods, particularly if processed to maximize the availability of
amino acids and consumed with foods that complement the amino acid profiles of vegetal
staples. In the case of the Aztecs, protein was unlikely to have been a limiting dietary
factor, given the abundance of migratory birds, amphibians, fish, insects, and algae harvested
from the lakes surrounding Tenochtitlán, the Aztec capital. Furthermore, the key staple grain,
maize (Zea mays L.), was routinely prepared in an alkaline solution, liberating bound amino
acids (Katz et al. 1974), and eaten with beans and amaranth, which complemented the amino
acids deficient in maize (Ortiz de Montellano 1990: 98 –119).
The dietary role of animal protein in many traditional horticultural and agricultural
societies is limited. The Tsembaga Maring peoples of highland Papua New Guinea may
get up to 99% of dietary calories from vegetal sources, despite high investment in pigs.
Rappaport’s Pigs for the Ancestors demonstrated that pig husbandry consumed more calories than it produced (Rappaport 1971). To account for this seeming irrational emphasis
on pig husbandry, Rappaport developed the theory that protein from pigs was reserved
for critical periods of intergroup conflict, thus enhancing a warrior’s tolerance of stress
(Rappaport 1984). Rather, it seems more likely that the Tsembaga exploit pigs as stored
nutritional value that can be used in feasting as a social currency (as noted in Rappaport’s
afterword, 1984).
India’s sacred cattle appear to involve an irrational reverence for an animal that is
ecologically counterproductive, producing little meat yet competing with the human population for scarce resources. Marvin Harris argued in a classic essay that in fact the Hindu
reverence for cattle is eminently rational given the many services cattle perform in the
local agricultural economy, most notably as draft animals and as a source of dung for fuel
and fertilizer (Harris 1965).
The Role of Animals Among Pastoralists
Pastoralists, like farmers, depend on domesticated species as primary food sources, yet, like
hunters and gatherers, they are characteristically highly mobile. Pastoral societies also exhibit intermediate population densities. However, most pastoral societies appear to have developed as specialized adjuncts to intensive agricultural systems. Bedouin camel herders, for
example, exchange surplus products with intensive farmers at desert oases, thus constituting
but one segment of a complex symbiotic system of exchange (Sweet 1965). East African
cattle herders, such as the Nuer, Karimojong, and Dodos, while placing great value on
their cattle, nevertheless depend on sorghum (Sorghum vulgare) and millet (Pennisetum
typhoideum) for the bulk of their dietary calories (cf. Deshler 1965). Livestock provide
meat, milk, and blood but also represent a form of money that may be banked for the
future, exchanged for other material and social commodities, notably as bride price payments, which may be the groom’s family’s recognition of the value of the productive and
reproductive powers of the wife (see, e.g., Evans-Pritchard 1940). Pastoral systems also
allow communities to occupy marginal lands too dry or too cold for sustainable agriculture
(e.g., Afghan Yak pastoralists; Shahrani 1976). Their success depends on the pride and
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endurance for which pastoralists are justifiably famed but also on sophisticated knowledge
of microhabitats, landforms, and pastures (Krohmer 2010).
Frederick Barth (1956) describes three ethnic groups occupying distinct cultural ecological niches in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, more recently the focus of attention as a
Taliban refuge. The politically dominant Pathans practice intensive agriculture on the
most fertile bottom lands of the valley. Displaced onto less productive lands, the
Kohistanis practice a mixed farming – pastoral regime, tending sheep and goats to supplement their limited agricultural production. Meanwhile, the pastoral Gujars move their
herds of sheep and goats from summer pastures high in the mountains to winter forage
as clients of dominant Pathan families, providing in turn meat products and dung to fertilize
Pathan fields.
Pastoralists have often been the subject of harsh criticism by development “experts”,
either for the “inefficiency” of their productive regimes—as Harris notes with regard to
Indian herders—or more often for the deleterious ecological impacts ascribed to their “overgrazing”. However, such criticism fails to consider how colonial governments both displaced
and restricted traditional movements of pastoral groups, movements which had allowed
herd forage requirements to be adjusted to available pasturage. The case of stock reduction
programs imposed on Navajo sheep herders is a complex but instructive case in point
(Weisiger 2008).
Similar critical judgments have been articulated with respect to sheep and goat herding.
However, on closer examination, it is overstocking by frontier settlers and colonial entrepreneurs in Australia (Lines 1991) and Mexico (Melville 1994) that had the most devastating
impact. By contrast, traditional goat husbandry in rural Portugal is a conservative practice
that maintains soil fertility by recycling nutrients from unproductive matorral—where
goats forage—to agricultural fields. Nitrogen-rich goat dung is collected overnight in
house compounds on beds of vegetation, then periodically plowed into nearby fields
(Estabrook 1998). Goats apparently play a similar role in the sustainable subsistence agriculture of certain Sierra Sur Zapotec communities in Oaxaca, Mexico. Here local farmers distinguish goat dung as “hot”, that is, associated with fertility, as opposed to the “cold” dung of
donkeys (Hunn 2008: 143 – 144). This distinction reflects the contrast between ruminant and
non-ruminant ungulates, ruminants digesting their forage far more thoroughly than nonruminants, thus concentrating nutrients to a greater degree (Estabrook, pers. commun. 2002).
Conservation
Ethnozoologists are well placed to contribute substance to often polemical and hypothetical
arguments with respect to the human impact on the natural world. Paul S. Martin, a paleontologist, promoted the view that human colonization of the Americas left a trail of massive
extinction of megafaunal species (Martin 1967). Martin’s argument is widely popular and
has been accepted as proven fact by many (cf. Diamond 1997: 44– 50), though the evidence
is circumstantial at best (Grayson 1984; Wolverton et al. 2009). Computer simulations
purport to show how ancestral “Clovis big-game hunters” could have wiped out large and
diverse populations of some 35 genera of ice age mammals. These simulations incorporate
a number of wildly unlikely demographic and behavioral assumptions (e.g., Martin 1973;
Whittington and Dyke 1984). For example, a demographic “shock wave” is envisioned propelled by a human population doubling every 20 years, a theoretical possibility but one that
ignores the strict limits imposed by the need to carry infants and young children in mobile
hunting-gathering societies (cf. Lee 1979: 320 ff, for the !Kung San). Pleistocene overkill
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91
would require also that hunters pursue megafaunal prey far beyond their capacity to
consume the animals they kill, in total disregard for the fact that it is difficult, dangerous
work to stalk, wound, track, dispatch, and butcher such large animals. Proponents imagine
that the hard work of overkill might be avoided by driving animals off cliffs, then cherrypicking the carcasses for the preferred cuts, leaving the bulk to rot. This ignores the fact
that such cliff sites are few and far between in the Americas. Diamond cites an archaeological
excavation of a prehistoric Folsom bison kill site in southern Colorado, the Olsen –
Chubbock site, in support of his enthusiastic endorsement of Martin’s claim (Diamond
1997). However, a careful reading of Ben Wheat’s analysis shows just the opposite; 75%
of the 200 bison killed were carefully disarticulated and another 15% partially butchered
(Wheat 1967). Presumably the hunting band responsible was unable to consume every
last pound of flesh, though they clearly made a valiant effort to do so. Hardly an example
of “primitive profligacy”.
Martin’s thesis extrapolates from the well documented extinctions primarily of birds
on Pacific Islands, from the giant flightless moas presumably exterminated by Polynesian
colonists (Anderson 1984) to the loss of a significant fraction of Hawaii’s archeologically
documented birds between Polynesian and European colonization (Olson and James
1984). Similar patterns of massive extinctions of island faunas prior to European colonization are evident from Madagascar to the Caribbean. What is as yet unclear is the
various roles played in these extinctions by hunting, on the one hand, or by habitat alteration
for agriculture, facilitated by systematic burning and the introduction of competitors, predators, and parasites on the other. However, it is certainly unjustified to equate the impact
of colonists bringing the tools and perspectives of intensive farmers to a fragile, virgin
island ecosystem with the potential impact of the Paleo-Indians who colonized the
American supercontinent.
Martin’s Pleistocene Overkill scenario casts a long shadow over the continuing controversy about “conservation” among Indigenous peoples (Smith and Wishnie 2000). Opinion
is sharply divided between those who presume that Indigenous communities are “just like
us”, selfish profit maximizers who have no thought for the future, versus romantics who imagine Indigenous peoples as the “First Friends of the Earth”. The truth is certainly somewhere
between these untenable extremes. Careful studies of contemporary Amazonian hunters
suggest that they do not select their prey according to accepted wildlife conservation management protocols, but rather hunt opportunistically (Alvard 1995). However, one might
argue that these particular hunters do not need to carefully husband their prey given their
low population densities. On the other hand, subsistence practices of peoples at high densities are grounded in a sophisticated appreciation of the population dynamics of prey
species, with harvests carefully regulated by tradition to maintain harvestable supplies
for the future. The Huna Tlingit gull egg harvest strategy involves harvesting eggs from
incomplete clutches of one or two eggs while sparing completed clutches of three
(Hunn et al. 2003). There is indirect evidence that Icelandic peoples similarly husbanded
waterfowl eggs over a period of many centuries (McGovern et al. 2007). In short, whether
subsistence-based communities managed their harvests with the future in mind depends on a
number of factors, such as the relative abundance of the prey species, the difficulty of monitoring local prey populations (e.g., in migratory or irruptive species), the effective political
and/or legal control by the local community of its territory, and the effectiveness of social
sanctions to inhibit “free riders” (cf. Smith and Wishnie 2000). Also important was the
impact of colonization. Krech’s debunking of The Ecological Indian “myth” (Krech
1999) fails to adequately consider that the examples he cites of ecologically destructive
impacts by American Indians, when not considerably exaggerated, are clearly consequent
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to the disruption of local Native societies by intrusive Euroamerican enterprise (e.g., the
beaver and bison harvests).
Pre-modern human societies radically altered the face of our planet. However, we must
also recognize that the current precarious state of the global environment is attributable not to
human nature but to particular cultural, social, and economic forces. Nor is it first of all a
matter of the fact that the human population will soon exceed seven billion and continues
to grow, though at a somewhat attenuated pace in recent decades. We must consider how
these billions of humans consume the earth’s resources, not only of food but of energy in
all its forms. The “human footprint” is a function of the human population multiplied by
per capita rates of energy consumption. By this standard the United States, with approximately 5% of the world’s population, consumes more than 25% of the world’s resources.
How we relate to animals is central to understanding our “ecological footprint”
(Wackernagel and Rees 1996).
Deforestation in the humid tropics has been blamed on the desperation of poor peasants
seeking land to clear and plant, “slash and burn” farming assumed to be their destructive
short-cut to survival. However, this involves a serious misplacement of blame. In Central
and South America, at least, perhaps the major force for deforestation has been the
demand for beef, to satisfy increasingly affluent urban populations in these countries or to
generate foreign exchange. In some cases landless peasants are enticed to do the work of
forest clearing in exchange for a year or two of low-rent subsistence farming, after which
they are required to sow the depleted tropical soil with African forage grass seed. The landowners—often wealthy urban residents—profit from government subsidies awarded those
who “improve” undeveloped forest with a bare minimum of investment in land and labor
(DeWalt 1982). Since the 1960s Central and South American nations have greatly expanded
beef production at the expense of forest and fallow lands (Ledec 1992).
Animals are “Good to Think”
Animals are more than things to be named or eaten. Animals are fellow creatures that inspire
our imaginations, people our sacred stories, inhabit our most fervent nightmares, and provide
for us a mirror to contemplate who and what we are. Claude Lévi-Strauss proposed in
Totemism (1963) that animal species—by virtue of the fact that they represent “lineages”
of individual animals reproducing after their own kind yet existing within a larger community of species—were a particularly apt symbol for human lineages in unilineal societies
(those calculating descent by exclusively male or female generational links). He concluded
that animals become symbols not “because they are good to eat but because they are good to
think”. Tambiah added that, “Animals are good to think, and good to prohibit” (Tambiah
1969). Food taboos go far beyond the totemic realm and have long proved a challenge
to scholars (Simoons 1961, Ross 1978). The biblical prohibitions outlined in Leviticus
and Deuteronomy present a classic case study in our struggle to make sense of obscure cultural prejudices. Mary Douglas pursued a parallel line of argument to that of Totemism in
Purity and Danger (1966), arguing that dietary prohibitions might best be explained as symbolic boundary markers, that prohibited species represent logical anomalies which threaten
symbolic orderings. She explicitly rejected the then popular materialist explanation of the
Hebrew prohibition on pork as a public health measure to avoid trichinosis. The priests of
ancient Israel prohibited as “unclean” the flesh of pigs, camels, rock badgers, and hares of
“the beasts that are on the earth” (Leviticus 11, 2 – 8). The ancient priests were quite explicit
in their rationale. “Clean” beasts have cloven hooves and chew the cud. “Unclean” beasts do
Case Studies and Theoretical Issues
93
one but not the other or neither. The hare, the “rock badger” (hyrax, a relative of the elephant)
and the camel chew their cud but lack true cloven hooves, while swine have the appropriate
hooves but fail to chew their cud. Thus, says Douglas, they threaten the symbolic order so
precious to the priests. However, the “unclean” birds are less easily pigeon-holed (pardon
the pun): “the eagle, the vulture, the osprey, the buzzard, the kite, after their kinds; the
ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, the hawk, after their kinds; the little owl and the great
owl, the water hen and the pelican, the carrion vulture and the cormorant, the stork, the
heron, after their kinds; the hoopoe and the bat. And all winged insects are unclean for
you; they shall not be eaten” (Deuteronomy 14, 11– 19). It is not clear what logical paradigm
is transcended here. Rather it seems the unclean birds are rejected primarily because they are
carnivorous, while bats and insects are marginal “birds” at best. But what of the hoopoe?
It turns out that the hoopoe is noted for “fouling its nest” (another pun) (Hunn 1979).
Animism
Early social theorists constructed elaborate models of the progressive development of
society from primitive, animal-like beginnings to the presumptive end-point, typically the
culture and society of the European elite. Religion evolved from primitive worship of
nature spirits, through elaborate polytheistic pantheons, to monotheistic world churches
proclaiming universal truths. Durkheim (2008) saw in this a general principle: religions
manifest the social experience of the societies that create them. “Acephalous” societies,
that is, those without hierarchical leadership, worship a congeries of spirit powers, with
no power in absolute control. Hierarchical societies, particularly those with elaborate bureaucratic power structures, imagine a hierarchy of spiritual authorities, systematically organized
under a supreme deity. The charismatic shamans and prophets of “simpler” societies are suppressed by the rule of a priesthood, carefully vetted and distinguished by privileged access to
sacred texts and arcane knowledge.
From this perspective “animism” was exiled to the outer reaches of the primitive mind.
Animists, according to Tyler (1871), placated a plethora of spirits in nature, to curry their
favor and avoid their spite. In my opinion this is a gross misrepresentation of the true
spirit of animism. Animism is not a religion per se but rather a moral perspective most
characteristically elaborated by hunting and gathering peoples, though evident among communities that depend as well on fishing and farming. Some claim that elements of animistic
belief persisted among the central Mexican peoples of the Aztec empire (Ortiz de
Montellano 1990).
The essential moral principle of an animistic perspective is this:
People, animals, plants, and other forces of nature—sun, earth, wind, and rock—are animated by
spirit. As such they share with humankind intelligence and will, and thus have moral rights and
obligations as PERSONS. (Hunn and Selam 1990: 230)
A deer hunter addresses the spirit of the deer requesting the gift of life. If the deer is well
disposed to the hunter, if the hunter has acted respectfully in his prior dealings with deer, he
will have luck in his hunting. If he should be arrogant or careless, he will have no luck.
Coyote decreed this in a Columbia Plateau Indian story. Coyote kills a pregnant doe, then
discards the fetuses as worthless. Coyote’s hunting luck deserts him; his family is in
desperate straits, starving for want of game, until Coyote is advised of his error.
At times the requirements of respect border on Levitical precision in the handling of the
animal’s body (Brightman 1973). A woman should never step over the carcass for fear of
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contamination. The bones of a bear must be carefully hung up in a tree beyond the reach of
dogs (Nelson 1983). The first salmon must be drained of blood and the first flesh shared as
sacred; then the bones of the first salmon must be returned to the river to assure the salmon
spirit will guide the fish home again (Gunther 1926). Humans belong to a wider, more comprehensive moral order that include as persons hunter and prey, bear and mouse, salmon in
the rivers, roots and berries in the hills, the dueling summer and winter winds. Coyote with a
capital “C” is the law-giver and messenger of the Creator.
Simple misunderstandings can seriously bias our reading of such stories. For example,
to confuse “Raven” with “Crow” is to conflate the distinction in Plateau Indian perspective
between the Raven—a chiefly bird with the power to tell of portentous events at a distance, if
one is able to understand Raven talk—and “gossipy” crows. Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) and Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) are clearly distinguished in the Sahaptin
language on the Columbia Plateau as xwaamá versus k’ámamul. The first is a powerful,
swift hunter; the second is a scavenger of dead fish. The animals in such stories are
mythic persons with quite human powers of speech and human inclinations, the better to
demonstrate to the children the pitfalls of pride and greed and the value of generosity. Yet
they retain their animal character, acutely observed.
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Chapter
7
Ethnobiology, Historical Ecology,
the Archaeofaunal Record, and
Interpreting Human Landscapes
PETER W. STAHL
Department of Anthropology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY
INTRODUCTION
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ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL METHODS
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ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECOVERY
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SPECIMEN IDENTIFICATION
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PERIMORTEM ASSEMBLAGE ACCUMULATION AND DEPOSITION
101
POSTMORTEM ACCUMULATION, DISPERSAL, AND DESTRUCTION
103
EQUIFINALITY
104
ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF PAST LANDSCAPES
105
SUBSISTENCE INTERPRETATION
105
PALEOECOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION
106
AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXAMPLE: ARCHAEOFAUNAL ACCUMULATION IN
WESTERN EQUADOR
107
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION
111
REFERENCES
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INTRODUCTION
The interrelationship between past human cultures and their surroundings is critically important for interdisciplinary ethnobiological study, and interpreting preserved organic residues
recovered in an archaeological context is essential for answering significant research
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Ethnobiology and Interpreting Human Landscapes
questions about the production and maintenance of human landscapes. How pervasive was
the human footprint, and what is the nature and importance of human landscapes in different
areas and at different times? How and why is this significant for our understanding of contemporary biodiversity and its conservation? What lessons can we learn from past landscape
management that we can apply to contemporary settings? What are the implications of past
landscape domestication for contemporary human populations? The answers to these questions have wide-ranging practical as well as moral implications.
Bioarchaeological data include preserved plant and animal specimens recovered from
buried contexts that were originally accumulated and deposited by, or in the presence of,
humans. As our primary data consist of the intentional and incidental byproducts of
human landscape manipulation, we function within the research program of historical ecology (Balée 2006). Historical ecology is part of a broader paradigmatic shift that incorporates
disequilibrium and contingency in contrast to the functionalism of equilibrium-based ecology. It can also be differentiated from allied ecological viewpoints by the weight it ascribes
to the cumulative effect of human activity on the landscape, which is regarded as a medium
intentionally created by and for human use. Historical ecology emphasizes the key role
played by humans in shaping biodiversity and maintaining intermediate levels of disturbance
which are fundamental to ecosystem health. As well as adapting to particular environments,
cultures create and manage landscapes that meet their needs; this can result in either
decreased or increased diversity depending upon local requirements. When we analyze preserved plant and animal remains and attempt to interpret past anthropogenic landscapes, our
intention is to understand the logic that was once expressed in Indigenous knowledge and
used to create and manage resources. Archaeologists study “patterns of residues, anomalies,
and cultural imprints (as palimpsest) of humans on the landscape” which comprise the primary data of historical ecology (Balée and Erickson 2006: 7). We therefore approach the
“environment” like any other human artifact encountered in the buried record, at different
scales of analysis but principally on the level of the landscape (Balée 1994, 1998, 2006;
Balée and Erickson 2006; Crumley 1994; Erickson 2006, 2008; Janzen 1998).
Zooarchaeologists analyze animal bone specimens recovered from excavated contexts
to interpret earlier human subsistence and associated ecological contexts in different
places and times. Preserved archaeofaunal assemblages include two related subsets of skeletal specimens: (1) those originating as discarded byproducts of animals that were intentionally accumulated by humans for subsistence purposes; and (2) those originating through
nonhuman accumulation that may or may not have been incidental to human activities,
and which implicate a potentially wide range of accumulating mechanisms like pit fall, fossorial death, hydrodynamic sorting, and nonhuman predation and deposition. Both subsets
can be relevant for either objective, as the interpretation of paleoecological contexts can
include inferences derived from culturally and non-culturally accumulated specimens; however, most subsistence interpretations are based on observations derived from analyzing
specimens that were accumulated by humans for dietary or other purposes.
Although it may seem intuitively obvious, it should be stressed that recovered specimens in both archaeofaunal subsets never constitute a complete sample of the animals
that were associated with any area or time of archaeological interest (Fig. 7.1). Specimens
in the assemblage were selectively accumulated and deposited by human and nonhuman
consumptive behaviors, and through the shared ecology of certain animals whose habits contributed to their eventual inclusion in excavated contexts. A potentially wide range of variables can subsequently modify the spatial arrangement and/or qualitative and quantitative
character of the deposited assemblage before and after its burial and eventual recovery in
archaeological excavation (e.g., Clark and Kietske 1967; Grayson 1981; Lyman 1987a,
Zooarchaeological Methods
99
Figure 7.1
A schematic taphonomic framework emphasizing the relationship between the studied
archaeological sample and the target population of interest. Sample size tends to decrease throughout the ontogeny
of assemblage formation from initial accumulation to archaeological recovery and analysis.
1994; Shipman 1981; Wilson 1988). Although both subsets of the assemblage are essential
for interpretation, it is important to consider their different accumulation histories before
they can be linked to the past target population of interest. This involves using taphonomy,
the study of what happens to animal remains after death. Valuable clues about taphonomic
history are accessed through the study of archaeologically recovered specimens and their
associated depositional contexts.
ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL METHODS
The relationship between target and sample populations must be critically evaluated in order
to gauge how well or poorly, and in what way, a recovered and identified sample represents
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Chapter 7 Ethnobiology and Interpreting Human Landscapes
the assemblage that was originally accumulated and deposited in any area and time of interest. The relationship is never isometric, as the sample assemblage is altered through subtraction, addition, and/or spatial rearrangement during the period between deposition and
recovery (Fig. 7.1). Contributing factors can include: how archaeological specimens are
recovered; limitations of osteological identification; and various modes of perimortem and
postmortem accumulation, deposition, dispersal, and destruction that can affect assemblage
formation. During analysis, zooarchaeologists search for clues or signatures in the preserved
study sample and its associated archaeological context, which might be useful for assessing
the sample’s relevance to research questions. However, we are mindful of the pervasive
caveat of equifinality (similar outcome produced by different events), as multiple effects
may be produced by one process, similar effects may be produced by different processes,
or previously observable effects may become obscured through subsequent assemblage
formation.
Archaeological Recovery
The quality and quantity of information available in the sample assemblage is strongly
affected by how specimens are recovered in the field. Different recovery techniques and variable screen aperture size alter basic characteristics of the archaeological sample. The most
obvious change is in the relative abundance and proportional representation of smaller specimens. Sample recovery using fine aperture mesh increases the likelihood of identifying
smaller animals, many of which may have lived in the immediate vicinity of assemblage
accumulation and deposition. This fraction of the archaeofaunal assemblage can be very
important for providing clues about local conditions in the archaeological area of interest.
Intensive recovery often increases the relative proportion of sample specimens that cannot
be identified beyond a certain level of taxonomic acuity because they were fragmented to
a size too small for reliable identification. In these instances, biomolecular analyses may
prove to be the only recourse.
The presence or absence of an animal, or clues about its subsequent taphonomic history,
can be affected simply by how specimens were recovered. Subsequent processing and handling can augment fragmentation or obscure clues about the assemblage’s taphonomic history. Fragmentation is of relevance for our interpretations only when it is not the
product of archaeological recovery and processing. This can usually be identified by the
fresh coloration of recent fracture surfaces. These issues can affect our counting statistics
and estimations of assemblage diversity.
Results from actualistic (analogically inferring past events from present observable processes) studies can be used to gauge the effects of recovery bias on assemblage representation. These can include the application of correction factors based upon the nested
screening of skeletal elements from animal taxa expected to appear in the recovered
sample (Thomas 1969), or through comparison of retrieved samples with known totals
recovered via water screening (Watson 1972). Shaffer (1992; Shaffer and Sanchez 1994)
presents useful results that were derived from screening complete skeletons of variously
sized animals through different aperture sizes. We can compare these data with the size of
aperture used to recover our sample in order to estimate whether or not the presence or
absence of individual skeletal elements in the assemblage might be attributed to recovery
in the field. For this purpose, measurements of length, width, and depth of each specimen
might also be useful for estimating the nature and extent of assemblage loss due to field
recovery (Stahl 2008a). Other kinds of evidence that can be important for understanding
Zooarchaeological Methods
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assemblage accumulation and deposition are found in archaeological contexts and should
be observed during the course of field recovery. These can include notation of skeletal
articulation, intrusion based on soil discoloration (disturbance, krotovinas, or infilled animal
burrows, etc.), and spatial or vertical association of specimens in feature contexts.
Specimen Identification
Specimen identification, which is fundamental to the primary goals of zooarchaeology, is
not a straightforward exercise (Driver 1992). At issue is the basic disjuncture between the
criteria that zoologists use to construct taxonomies and the nature of preserved archaeological data. With the exception of cranial anatomy and dentition, systematists base their inferences about natural populations on criteria that are normally not preserved in the
archaeological record. As a result, certain portions of the vertebrate skeleton, especially
highly durable teeth, tend to have greater diagnostic resolution than others. Due to aspects
of differential preservation, denser element portions which are relatively resistant to fragmentation often retain diagnostic landmarks that can enhance identification. Fragmentation
can obscure identification by producing specimens which are too small to be reliably identified at different levels of zoological acuity. This is most often associated with relative body
size, as tiny specimens from small-bodied animals may still be large enough for identification, whereas larger-bodied animals often yield larger non-identifiable fragments
(Watson 1979).
Many factors can contribute to variation in specimen identification. Whereas the basic
zoological systematics of certain taxa may be poorly understood or osteological variation
within and between some populations may be unknown, other animals may be highly identifiable due to specific unique skeletal characteristics. Often, osteological criteria for differentiating closely related taxa may be obscure or arbitrary. It is not uncommon for
identification to be based on other factors like specimen size, geographical or temporal context, the relative experience of the analyst, or what kind of comparative material is available
in the consulted collection. In any or all of these cases it might be best to use ascending taxonomic levels of inclusive identification, with specimens identified to Genus, Family, Order,
Class, and so on, with a further caveat that taxonomies are never immutable but constantly
adjusted. The qualitative and quantitative structure of the study sample, how representative it
is of our target of interest, and its overall interpretive utility for our research questions, are
direct outcomes of specimen identification.
Perimortem Assemblage Accumulation and Deposition
The relationship between the sample and target of interest is initiated when assemblages are
accumulated and deposited. Archaeological reconstruction of human subsistence is based
upon that subset of available fauna specifically selected for consumption; therefore, it
focuses primarily on those specimens in the sample which can be reliably related to this
target of interest. It is thus necessary to separate the animals selectively accumulated for
humans’ use from those whose accumulation and deposition were incidental to human consumption. Both subsets can be relevant for landscape reconstruction because specimens that
are incidental to human consumption can provide information about local conditions in the
immediate area of deposition, and specimens produced in the course of human consumption
can also provide information about conditions in areas from which they were originally procured. Nonetheless, the entire sample assemblage is never a complete representation of the
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animals that lived in the general area and time of archaeological interest because of the selective nature of accumulation and deposition. Associated evidence for different modes of
accumulation can be preserved in the buried record.
Most archaeological assemblages include specimens of animals whose accumulation
and deposition were incidental to human activity at the time of occupation, or had intruded
into archaeological contexts after site abandonment. Often, these animals consist of smaller
commensal taxa, especially rodents, which thrive in conditions created by humans and are
generally treated as nuisance rather than as prey. They are often included into deposits as the
result of death through accidental entrapment, fires, floods, and collapsed underground burrows. These specimens can be of particular interest for paleoecological interpretation as they
often represent depositionally proximate faunas whose presence in the assemblage may be
relevant for interpreting local conditions.
Various characteristics of the preserved sample and its associated archaeological context
can aid in the identification of these specimens. High concentrations of preserved specimens
that represent all or most anatomical portions of the skeleton can suggest accidental death
and subsequent decay. This is supported by relative completeness with little perimortem
damage to the skeleton, and can be further corroborated by anatomical articulation. Very
often archaeologists rely on bone coloration as a clue to intrusion, particularly when it is
quite distinct from the rest of the assemblage. For example, pale coloration (especially relative to other specimens) is often assumed to be a characteristic of intrusive specimens; however, this does not necessarily establish if the intrusion occurred before, during, or after
assemblage accumulation. Associated archaeological context is crucial for interpreting the
mode of accumulation, such as the presence of visible soil krotovinas (filled rodent holes)
or vertical and spatial association with features that facilitate entrapment and inhibit
escape. Ecological characteristics of identified taxa are important for interpretation, including food and habitat preferences, locomotor habits, gregariousness, and any characteristics
that might facilitate susceptibly to accidental accumulation and deposition (Andrews 1990;
Stahl 1996; Whyte 1991).
Archaeofaunal assemblages include bone specimens that were deposited through the
accumulation and modification of prey items by human and nonhuman predators.
Although either prey sample was selectively removed from its surroundings, both can provide background information on conditions in areas from which they were procured. Prey
taxa can be identified through digested bone specimens deposited in scats and pellets; predators can also be identified through specific modifications that occurred during capture,
consumption, and digestion. Actualistic study of different predators can provide clues to
the identity of the accumulator from digested bone based on modification during consumption. This can include tooth marks, acid etching, patterned bone fragmentation, skeletal
element representation, adhering scat material, the archaeological context of deposition,
and ecological information about the identified prey. Identifications are strengthened
through use of multiple criteria (Andrews 1990; Andrews and Evans 1983; Butler and
Schroeder 1998; Crandall and Stahl 1995).
Nonhuman carnivores frequently accumulate, modify, spatially rearrange, and deposit
bone specimens in archaeological contexts. This can occur before and after humans abandon
the site or during its occupation, especially when domestic dogs are present. Their involvement in assemblage formation is identified through preserved evidence in the bone assemblage, and compared to the results of actualistic studies focused on carcass reduction and
consumption by carnivores. Tooth marks are common on comminuted bone, and their morphology, frequency, and orientation are noted, along with representation of preserved skeletal parts. Archaeological context and the identification of the potential nonhuman
Zooarchaeological Methods
103
accumulator from bone specimens in the assemblage can also be important (Binford 1981;
Brain 1981).
Evidence for bone accumulation, modification, and deposition by humans often
involves a wider range of potential data, primarily because of the variety of techniques
and practices involved in cultural consumption. Preserved evidence on bone specimens
can include features of bone breakage, marks left primarily by tools and in some cases by
teeth, and carcass disarticulation. The location and morphology of breakage, the nature of
the breakage surface, and any evidence for what might have caused the breakage are
noted. However, patterned breakage can be equivocal as it is often governed by osteological
properties of bone rather than the event that contributed to its breakage. Butchery scars produced by tools are generally rare, and noted for their location, orientation, and morphology.
Various attributes of mark morphology, including shape, frequency, and orientation are
recorded. The interpretation of patterned disarticulation suffers from the same problems
as breakage because it tends to be controlled by anatomical variables rather than the process
responsible for its disarticulation (Hill 1979; Lyman 1987b).
Archaeologists often consider bone modified through exposure to heat as evidence for
human consumption. However, evidence of exposure to heat is not necessarily a product of
cooking because many techniques impart no visible signs of heat modification on bone
specimens. Humans intentionally expose flesh to heat more often than bone, except
during marrow extraction. Patterned burning of bone may appear on portions of bone that
are exposed to heat while meat is being processed. However, many techniques used in cooking often leave no trace of direct heat modification on bone, which is very often the result of
intentional disposal of garbage or when it is used as fuel. Archaeologists record the extent,
color, and anatomical location of heat modification. Differential coloration can be particularly useful as it is associated with the amount of combusted bone organic matter.
Comparisons of bone specimens with published actualistic studies that record the color
reached at different temperatures can independently assess the degree of exposure to heat
(Shipman et al. 1984).
Although usually rare in the archaeological record, potentially unambiguous evidence
for human use consists of preserved bones that were modified into tools. The animal and
element from which they were fashioned are identified, and associated ecological and ethnographic information are used for interpretive purposes: was it a potential dietary item? commensal? domesticate? The archaeological context of the deposited assemblage is also
important for interpretation: was it recovered from a trash pit, midden, hearth, house floor,
cache, butchery site, or elsewhere? In all cases, we can mitigate the potential problem of
equifinality through the use of multiple lines of evidence, which in turn strengthen the
inference.
Postmortem Accumulation, Dispersal, and Destruction
The taphonomic history and potential for increased skeletal disorganization of a bone assemblage continues during exposure prior to burial. Fluvial transport can spatially rearrange and
modify assemblages by alternately winnowing or accumulating exposed specimens. Water
moving at increasing velocities over various substrates can differentially sort deposited
bone corresponding to specimen size, shape, and density. Elements of small skeletons are
particularly prone to dispersal through even low velocity sorting. Evidence for hydrodynamic sorting can be found in the patterned orientations of bone assemblages, modification
through abrasion, shared physical characteristics associated with water movement, and an
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Chapter 7 Ethnobiology and Interpreting Human Landscapes
analysis of sediment matrix in archaeological contexts (Behrensmeyer 1975; Dodson 1973;
Voorhies 1969).
Bone specimens are also accumulated by non-carnivores for mineral consumption and
dental maintenance in cases where high crowned or ever-growing teeth are in need of filing.
Rodents and artiodactyls can leave distinct tooth marks which are often highlighted by coloration that is different from the rest of accessible bone surfaces. Archaeological context, and a
specimen’s size, shape, and condition can also offer clues about the identity of the bone collector. Trampling of exposed assemblages can also produce breakage, surface modification,
size sorting, and vertical or horizontal movement. Weathering and desiccation of exposed
bone can lead to bleaching, cracking, exfoliation, and eventual disintegration of bone
material over time. Taphonomists typically monitor the degree of surficial weathering as a
proxy for estimating the duration of assemblage exposure and interpreting ambient conditions prior to burial. Patterned weathering can be used as a potential clue for interpreting
sequential burial/re-exposure and for recognizing attritional and catastrophic accumulation
(Behrensmeyer 1975; Lyman and Fox 1989).
Alteration of archaeological bone assemblages continues after burial. Chemical dissolution of bone proceeds through a complex interaction between microbial activity, soil chemistry, water, and temperature, combined with physical characteristics of the buried specimen,
especially its size, shape, state of fragmentation, exposure of interior surfaces, and relative
porosity. The burial environment can also substitute or add materials to the bone specimen,
and contribute to breakage or vertical and spatial movement through overburden pressure
and compaction. Chemical assays, fracture morphology, coloration, surface modification,
conjoinability, actualistic study of buried bone, and archaeological context are examined
to infer influences produced in the relative black box of diagenesis (Hedges 2002).
Equifinality
The use of preserved evidence to identify aspects of assemblage formation history and for
assessing the relationship between sample and target is often confounded by equifinality.
Evidence that may have been available at one point in an assemblage’s taphonomic history
may have been subsequently obscured by later processes. More perniciously, one taphonomic process may produce many different kinds of preserved effects, whereas one kind
of preserved effect may be produced by many different taphonomic processes. Despite
these ubiquitous problems, we attempt to identify different modifying factors, understand
their origin, order their sequence, and evaluate their importance for assemblage preservation/destruction as best we can.
Bone destruction and preservation are of cardinal importance to zooarchaeological
research. Although we can study the various processes that contribute to destruction and
preservation, bone survivorship is strongly influenced by the differential structural density
of its component parts. Harder portions tend to have a greater chance of survival; fragile portions tend to be more prone to destruction. Bone survivorship is an important example of an
equifinal outcome in which one pattern can be produced by many different factors. In order
to achieve some understanding of bone survivorship and how sample specimens compare to
complete skeletons, zooarchaeologists employ measurements of bone structural density
which can evaluate the nature and degree to which sample preservation has been mediated
by differential density. Taphonomists have used various methods to measure bone structural
density in different animal skeletons. It has become somewhat routine to compare the
Zooarchaeological Interpretation of Past Landscapes
105
survivorship of sample specimens with these density values in order to assess whether or
not assemblage preservation was influenced by attritional forces whose effects were
mediated by the structural density of bone throughout the skeleton. The procedure is not
without its problems, but can be used as a first-order approximation for exploring assemblage survivorship. Although this approach may implicate an underlying cause for preservation, we still rely on observations of the recovered sample and its archaeological
context for uncovering evidence to suggest more proximate reasons as to why the sample
preserved in the way that it did. The likelihood of a correct assessment of assemblage survivorship is strengthened through corroboration from multiple lines of evidence (Brain 1981;
Lam and Pearson 2004; Lyman 1994)
ZOOARCHAEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF PAST
LANDSCAPES
Subsistence Interpretation
If we can reliably identify the portion of a recovered assemblage that was originally accumulated and deposited by humans for their consumption, then we can ask questions appropriate
to human subsistence. However, we must be aware that quantitative and qualitative differences in the studied assemblage can result from factors that contributed to its modification
during the time between original accumulation and eventual analysis. The basic analytical
unit for all subsequent inferences is the NISP (Number of Identified Specimens) of
animal taxa that is relevant to inferences about prehistoric consumption. However, different
values of NISP can vary for reasons that are unrelated to inferences about subsistence. These
differences may be due to factors associated with specific animals or skeletal elements, and
are often strongly affected by fragmentation, differential preservation, and techniques of
field recovery (Grayson 1981).
Subsistence inferences based solely on NISP are often misleading. Normally, NISP is
presented alongside an estimate of the Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI) of a given
taxon required to account for the NISP of that taxon in the sample. In its simplest form,
MNI is equal to the highest number of either left or right paired element portions for each
given taxon. The Minimum Number of Elements (MNE) is similarly computed without distinguishing body side, and can be easily converted into Minimum Animal Units (MAU),
which relate the MNE to individual body portions. Although not without their attendant problems, these derived permutations of NISP offer units of analysis that are more useable for
questions about diet. Increasingly robust and reliable inferences about dietary contribution
are possible when coupled with appropriate utility indices, which consist of empirically
determined estimates of total food value represented in different skeletal portions of different
animal taxa (Binford 1978).
Archaeological data can help us to identify what kinds of animals humans exploited,
which sexes or ages were preferred and when, where, and how they were procured, processed, and consumed. Nevertheless, the exact quantitative relationship between the recovered and deposited samples remains unknown. Moreover, we can never be certain how
representative the deposited assemblage is of the original sample of animals that was procured and consumed by humans. Therefore, it is usually difficult to establish anything but
a rough estimate of relative dietary contribution.
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Chapter 7 Ethnobiology and Interpreting Human Landscapes
Paleoecological Interpretation
If we can establish how the recovered assemblage was originally accumulated and deposited,
and understand how attributes of the study assemblage reflect biases introduced by the
accumulating agent, then we can ask questions appropriate to paleoecology. Again, we
must be aware that quantitative and qualitative differences in the studied assemblage
result from factors that contributed to its modification during the time between original
accumulation and eventual analysis. However, we can never be certain that the quantitative
structure of our recovered sample accurately reflects either the structure of the original
accumulation or a hypothetical population of animals in the past.
Archaeological interpretations of former landscapes are based on relational inferences
that we construct by linking repeated observations between contemporary processes and
their resultant effects. If we can recognize similarities between contemporary objects and
our sample of recovered, identified, and analyzed specimens in their associated archaeological context, we can infer the likelihood of a similar relationship holding for the past
(Lyman 1994: 64). The inferential logic of paleoecology relies heavily on contemporary
observations of organisms and actualistic studies which we link to our identifications in
the recovered sample. The spatial and temporal controls provided by archaeological context
allow us to project these inferences onto a target of archaeological interest in a specified place
and time. Although analogical relationships are commonly used in retrodiction, they may
become seriously flawed by limitations in the archaeological samples and misinterpretation
of the relationship between the recovered sample and the target of interest.
Findley (1964) has identified four problems of immediate relevance to inference building in archaeology.
1 The analogical relationship often requires high resolution identifications. Most animals are polytypic and have different ecologies and unique habits at the species
level or lower. Higher level identifications (Genus, Family, Order), although entirely
appropriate for purposes of identification, may not be accurate enough for analogy
building.
2 Although a specimen may be identified with sufficient resolution, the available ecological data may be poorly known or inadequate for our purposes.
3 Many animal taxa are eurytopic, or widely distributed and broadly tolerant of a wide
range of ecological conditions. Although stenotopic organisms, which tolerate only a
narrow range of conditions, are preferred by paleoecologists for high resolution inferences, I argue below that eurytopic animals can be very important for interpreting
past human landscapes.
4 The analogical relationship can be abrogated in cases where animals displayed elastic
preferences by exhibiting a broad tolerance to changing conditions through time.
Many years ago, Grayson (1981) cautioned zooarchaeologists that using archaeological
vertebrates to reconstruct paleoenvironments is not a straightforward exercise. He warned
against trusting any interpretation that treated identified taxa as variables; the results
would always be in question because variations of taxonomic abundance in the sample
could not be validly associated with fluctuations in the target of interest. The exact relationship between both the specimen counts and the number of animals that originally contributed
to the sample, and the accumulated sample and the target of interest, is usually unknown and
indeed unknowable. The numbers of animals reaching the area of assemblage deposition
more likely reflect the mechanisms that accumulated them rather than their actual past
An Archaeological Example: Archaeofaunal Accumulation in Western Equador
107
abundance, and because these mechanisms are rarely understood, the relationship between
sample and target is usually never known with any precision.
Since the exact significance of taxonomic abundances is difficult to determine, Grayson
(1981) cogently recognized that interpretations based on presence/absence data are the only
currently acceptable approach to paleoenvironmental analysis. Interpretations based upon
quantitative assessments have a greater chance of being incorrect. An asymmetrical
interpretation of attribute level data, which emphasizes presence rather than absence, reduces
these chances greatly. This approach is certainly not without its limitations for the reasons
outlined by Findley (1964), problems with archaeological resolution, and the potential transport of animals from areas far beyond the depositional environment of interest (Grayson
1981: 35 – 36). However, problems associated with these issues are mitigated by reconstructing communities of associated vertebrates because the niche of an entire community is narrower than that of any one of its individual components. Problems associated with
archaeological resolution and transport are also overcome through multiple concordance
within an identified suite of taxa. The possibility that any of these problems had affected
only one member of the community is far greater than the possibility that all members of
the entire community were affected in the same direction and to the same magnitude
(Birks and Birks 1980: 27; Grayson 1981: 35). The validity of our inferences can be further
corroborated through concordance with other kinds of data, such as associated botanical
specimens and archaeological context.
AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXAMPLE: ARCHAEOFAUNAL
ACCUMULATION IN WESTERN EQUADOR
A zooarchaeological reconstruction of past landscape conditions that attempts to account for
many of the issues discussed in this essay is provided in the analysis of a prehistoric pit from
the tropical lowlands of western Ecuador (Stahl 2000). Pit features tend to be highly valued
by archaeologists for many reasons, not least of which are the high resolution contexts they
can provide for paleoecological inference. In particular, highly visible stratigraphy within pit
features can augment our ability to interpret the elapsed time, nature, and even purpose of
assemblage accumulation. The specimens associated with the pit consist of the discarded
remnants of dietary animals and potentially entrapped faunas. The pit contexts enable the
archaeologist to infer alternate pathways of assemblage accumulation, which permit further
exploration of how these specimens might be used as proxies for understanding local landscape conditions in and around the original area of deposition. The validity of any interpretation about past landscape conditions can be explored further and potentially corroborated if
other kinds of associated materials that preserved in the pit feature appear to support similar
inferences.
Feature 5 is the surviving half of a large pit feature that was exposed in the left cut bank
of the Rı́o Pechichal, a tributary of the Rı́o Jama, whose drainage basin is the largest of its
kind in the northern Manabı́ province of western Ecuador (Fig. 7.2). It is one of a number of
earthen features found at the site of Pechichal, a larger secondary multicomponent prehistoric center located in an alluvial pocket on the valley floor. The pit, with its restricted orifice
and almost symmetrical outsloping walls, was excavated into a thick layer of compact volcanic tephra which was likely deposited by an eruption in the Andes between AD 300 and
500. Two radiocarbon samples retrieved from deep within the pit clearly place its oldest fill
within the Muchique 2 Phase of the prehistoric Jama-Coaque culture between AD 400 and
AD 750.
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Chapter 7 Ethnobiology and Interpreting Human Landscapes
Figure 7.2 One half of the Feature 5 pit exposed in the cut bank of the Rı́o Pechichal, Manabı́ Province,
Ecuador. Photograph courtesy of James A. Zeidler.
Twenty clearly defined depositional strata are visible in the profile, which was used as a
guide for excavation (Fig. 7.3). Pollen and phytolith samples were removed from the cleaned
profile face, and the top of the pit was exposed through excavation of a 1.5 1.5 m test unit
over its orifice. The matrix of each depositional stratum (contexts 25– 29 and 34– 48) was
processed through a water flotation system equipped with a fine mesh barrel insert, and
then sorted. The pit has an opening large enough to accommodate a human, and its recovered
contents are consistent with discarded refuse, suggesting that it was originally used for storage and later for trash disposal. In addition to vertebrate specimens, its contents also
included shell, burned clay and wattle and daub fragments, and various kinds of ceramic
and lithic items. A sampled phytolith assemblage included evidence for grasses, a possibly
cultivated root crop, trees, shrubs, and spurges. Macrobotanical contents included grasses,
wood charcoal, maize, beans, wild legumes, cotton, amaranth, guava, edible nightshade,
chirimoya, squash, nut, palm, edible herbs, fruits, pits, and tubers (Pearsall 2004).
The stratigraphic distribution of pit contents is variable and coincides with the uneven
distribution of matrix volumes, the bulkiest of which are located toward the bottom of the pit.
The assemblage of vertebrate specimens appears, however, to be vertically distributed into
two distinct groups, including: (1) stratigraphic concentrations of skeletal specimens from
smaller animals that occur in high frequencies, representing many different kinds of
elements, and from many individuals (Fig. 7.4); and (2) stratigraphically dispersed and isolated skeletal specimens from larger animals that occur in lower frequencies, representing
fewer different kinds of elements, and from fewer individuals. These observations can be
combined with data from field research on neotropical forest fragmentation and ecological
An Archaeological Example: Archaeofaunal Accumulation in Western Equador
109
Figure 7.3
Accompanying stratigraphic profile of the Feature 5 pit showing depositional strata within the
pit, and excavation strata in the superpositioned test unit.
information from represented species to provide powerful inferences about past landscape
conditions.
The stratigraphically concentrated specimens likely include a mix of discarded food
waste and naturally entrapped animals. Aquatic faunas, including thermally altered marine
shells, river shrimp exoskeletons, and fish bones are found mostly in the lowest units of
the pit. They appear in association with the remains of important food crops like maize,
cotton, tubers, beans, palm, squash, and guava. Much of the thermally altered material in
the pit is found in the lowest contexts, and it is suggested that garbage was burned in situ
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Chapter 7 Ethnobiology and Interpreting Human Landscapes
Figure 7.4
Rodent bones and teeth recovered from Feature 5 through water flotation.
as a factor of waste disposal. In addition, the relatively complete skeletons of small animals
suggest that certain faunas living in the vicinity of the pit may have accidentally fallen into an
outwardly sloping pit and subsequently died. In particular the lowest deposits, from which
escape was least likely for a small animal, include numerous specimens from different
elements of frogs or toads, and many snake vertebrae. Snakes are heavily represented in
the assemblage by vertebral fragments, as these preserved specimens are the only ones available for identification. There are also three conspicuous concentrations of rodent specimens,
most of which represent the preserved remains of very small rats and mice. Many of these
smaller skeletons are relatively complete, some have the glossy appearance of intrusive
specimens, and all appear in association with botanical food waste (Fig. 7.4). Rotting garbage and/or insects may have attracted these animals to the pit, after which they may
have fallen in during periodic episodes of waste disposal and become entrapped by the
insloping (from their perspective) walls.
The stratigraphically dispersed mammalian specimens within the pit, with the exception
of a few bat teeth, represent the remains of important food animals. Skeletal representation is
characterized by relatively few specimens, of few skeletal elements, and from few individual
animals that are dispersed throughout the pit profile as isolated fragments. Most of the taxa
represented in this sample are animals not prone to entrapment, and include favored dietary
sources like larger opossum, monkeys, rabbits, agoutis, peccary, and deer. Nevertheless, for
the purposes of landscape interpretation, establishing a precise mechanism for how portions
of these animals got into the pit is less important than the fact that they were recovered in
close association with the concentrations of smaller, potentially entrapped, animals.
Archaeological context facilitated the identification of two distinct vertical groupings of
archaeofaunal specimens which had likely accumulated in the pit in different ways. When
the natural histories of contemporary mammalian analogs for the pit faunas are considered
alongside these dissimilar accumulation histories, this particular association of preserved
archaeological specimens makes ecological sense. The likely entrapped faunas include a
superabundance of hardy generalists that prevail along forest edges, whereas the dietary
faunas consist of animals that thrive either along the edge or within the backdrop of forest
Summary and Discussion
111
fragments. It is reasonable to suggest that the Pechichal pit assemblage had accumulated in a
landscape context characterized by significant forest fragmentation.
The inference is generated on the basis of observations by ecologists who wish to assess
the effects of fragmentation on tropical forest ecosystems and how these data can be applied
to issues of forest conservation and management. Like most ecological phenomena, the
effects of fragmentation are certainly complex and interrelated; however, these ecological
studies also document which vertebrate taxa are able to thrive under such conditions and
why. Particularly abundant are many smaller herpetofaunas and rodents, especially habitat
generalists and those with insectivorous diets. It is not surprising that the pit assemblage
is numerically dominated by small rodents that favor clearings and secondary groundcover,
especially in and around the kinds of landscapes created by and for humans. The assumption
is that many of these entrapped faunas lived and died within the immediate environs of the
pit, and archaeological evidence indicates that the feature was situated in the cleared area of
human habitation.
It is interesting to note that the stratigraphically dispersed faunas, which consist of larger
and presumably dietary taxa, tend to be habitat generalists that thrive under conditions of
forest fragmentation, a point about which tropical horticulturists are intimately aware. The
associated botanical specimens clearly indicate a suite of both wild and domesticated
plants that is typical of the polycultural horticulture practiced in tropical regions. The isolated
specimens of larger pit faunas include birds and mammals that are minimally capable of persisting in forest fragments, and under certain conditions actually thrive there due to their
diets, habits, flexibility, and/or foraging range. Through analysis of the pit archaeofaunas,
and corroboration with associated archaeological materials and context, it is hypothesized
that the Pechichal Feature 5 contents originally accumulated in an open pit situated in or
near a secondary edge which was backed by fragmented isolates of remnant forests. The
inference supports a broader argument that the prehistoric environment of the Jama valley
was heavily anthropogenic, perhaps since human farmers colonized the valley over four
millennia ago (Pearsall 2004; Stahl 2006).
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION
This chapter began with a number of interrelated questions which embrace ethnobiological
pursuits and whose answers hold significant consequences for contemporary society. They
raise many wide-ranging practical and moral implications in the matter of how humans have
interacted with other organisms. The archaeobiological reconstruction from the Jama Valley
of western Ecuador illustrates a type of tropical agroforestry which was likely integrated with
other forms of forest cultivation into an intensively managed pre-Columbian landscape
(Denevan 2001: 124; 2006). Ethnobiologists study Indigenous management systems
among tropical farmers today; however, in most parts of the western hemisphere archaeobiological data provide the only available information for understanding these questions in past
contexts. Their answers contribute to the interests of a broader research program in historical
ecology and inform on the logic of an Indigenous knowledge that was once implemented
to create and manage resources by and for humans (Stahl 2008b). These various forms of
ethnobiological inquiry hold direct applications and significant implications for contemporary resource management.
Relic human landscapes can be accessed through the analysis of faunal specimens
recovered from archaeological contexts. The sample assemblage of preserved specimens
often comprises two subsets of material which can be set apart from each other by their
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Chapter 7 Ethnobiology and Interpreting Human Landscapes
different accumulation histories. Both can be of importance for understanding past human
landscapes; however, it is important to assess critically how the analyzed sample reflects
the target of interest. This helps us to gauge whether our data are appropriate for the research
questions we wish to answer. We can evaluate the relationship between our sample and the
target assemblage of interest through the use of inferential logic and the analysis of preserved
evidence and its associated archaeological context. Preserved clues that pertain to aspects of
archaeological recovery, specimen identification, perimortem accumulation and deposition,
and postmortem accumulation, dispersal, and destruction are evaluated alongside the omnipresent issue of equifinality. The interpretations we generate are less prone to error when we
consider our archaeofaunal assemblage as ecologically parsimonious suites of attributes that
are positively identified in association with their spatial and temporal contexts of interest.
Zooarchaeology has experienced significant methodological headway over the past few
decades and has departed considerably from previously accepted standards of archaeological
interpretation. These strides have been achieved primarily through the application of more
nuanced taphonomic approaches to an understanding of assemblage formation. This in
turn relies heavily on the continued contribution of new methodological instruments
which are added through actualistic research to the growing toolkit used by zooarchaeologists. Future investments of intellectual energy should continue to increase the size,
scope, and precision of our taphonomic toolkit, which will further enhance our critical
assessments of assemblage formation, and our ability to interpret the extent and nature of
anthropogenic involvement in past landscapes.
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Chapter
8
Ethnobiology as a Bridge between
Science and Ethics: An Applied
Paleozoological Perspective
STEVE WOLVERTON
Department of Geography, Center for Environmental Archaeology, Institute of Applied Sciences,
University of North Texas, Denton, TX
CHARLES R. RANDKLEV
Department of Biology, Institute of Applied Sciences, University of North Texas, Denton, TX
ANDREW BARKER
Department of Geography, Center for Environmental Archaeology, Institute of Applied Sciences,
University of North Texas, Denton, TX
APPLIED PALEOZOOLOGY
117
SCALES FOR RESTORATION AND CONSERVATION
117
ANALYTICAL METHODS
118
WHITE-TAILED DEER OVERABUNDANCE IN CENTRAL TEXAS
119
BLACK BEARS IN MISSOURI
121
LATE HOLOCENE FRESHWATER MUSSEL BIOGEOGRAPHY IN NORTH TEXAS
124
THE BIOGEOGRAPHIC POTENTIAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL ORGANIC RESIDUES
126
DISCUSSION
127
CONCLUSION
129
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
129
REFERENCES
129
In the face of the global environmental crisis, ethnobiologists find themselves in a potentially
helpful position. Ethnobiology represents one of a few bridging disciplines between
the philosophical foundations of environmental ethics and the scientific foundations of
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
115
116
Chapter 8 Ethnobiology as a Bridge between Science and Ethics
environmental science. Environmental philosophers study what ought to be done to address
environmental problems at multiple spatial and temporal scales (Borgerhoff-Mulder and
Coppolillo 2005; Rolston 1988), focusing on what it means to value nature, how humans
do value and should go about valuing nature, and how these ethical footings should
inform science and policy. Environmental science incorporates functional roles for many
scientific disciplines (Miller 2007). Environmental science and environmental ethics share
the goal of curbing the environmental crisis through communication among practitioners
from different fields, appreciation of diverse perspectives, and incorporation of vested parties
in policies and management decisions (Penn and Mysterud 2007a). Practitioners of ethnobiology communicate and interact across disciplinary, cultural, and temporal boundaries
(Lepofsky 2009; Nabhan 2009). Within ethnobiology, applied zooarchaeology (or “applied
paleozoology” to include paleontology)—the study of animal remains from archaeological
and paleontological sites to provide baseline information relevant to restoration ecology and
conservation biology—transcends temporal boundaries and offers an example of a bridging
perspective that links ethics to science.
Many of the disciplines represented within ethnobiology offer a perspective of what philosopher Albert Borgmann (2000) terms “disclosure,” a shift in analytical scale such that
natural processes (e.g., geological, cultural, and/or biological processes) are more profoundly understood. Examples are cultural relativism1 in cultural anthropology, the theory
of evolution in biology, and deep temporal perspectives in geology and archaeology.
Applied anthropologists, for example, mediate between people of radically different cultural
backgrounds, the goal being to accomplish the “profounder task” of compromise that values
multiple cultural perspectives but also meets people’s needs through processes such as cultural brokerage and social marketing (Van Willigen 2002).
The deep temporal perspective of the time-like sciences (Dunnell 1982) such as geology,
evolutionary biology, and archaeology transcends the analytical scale of a human lifetime
Figure 8.1 A conceptual framework of the
interaction between the environmental–ecological sciences and environmental ethics, highlighting ethnobiology as a bridging discipline.
After Rozzi 1999: 912, Figure 1. Copyright,
American Institute of Biological Sciences.
1
Here we mean “descriptive relativism” characterized by Brown (2008: 367), but we acknowledge that this term
entails a range of meanings spanning from cognitive anthropology to ethics.
Scales for Restoration and Conservation
117
and provides awareness of the contingency of modern phenomena (Oelschlaeger 2000;
Simpson 1963). Without this depth, modern solutions to seemingly short-term problems
are divorced from evolutionary reality. From a perspective of disclosure, applied paleozoology is highly relevant to conservation biology and restoration ecology. It bridges between
environmental science and philosophy (Fig. 8.1). Without such a perspective, the paths to
extinction, reduction in biodiversity, and introduction of pest exotic species today are analyzed without understanding the “journey” to the “destination.” Applied paleozoology
bridges ethics and science by offering a sense of contingency and urgency because consideration of deep time highlights the environmental crisis by providing a basis for concluding
that modern humans ought to make changes to reverse the long-term effects of unsustainable
environmental policies and habits.
APPLIED PALEOZOOLOGY
Applied paleozoology is the use of zooarchaeological/paleontological datasets to provide
long-term information on biological changes (Lyman 1996). What species were present in
an area in the past (Grayson 2006)? What species should not be there today (Emslie
1987)? How has biodiversity changed in the face of modern human impacts (Stahl
1996)? What are the long-term evolutionary and ecological implications of human impacts
on the environment (Russell 2003)? Applied paleozoology offers new answers to important
questions and a new perspective on the evolutionary trajectories of ecosystems (Landres
1992). For example, Virginia Butler and Michael Delacorte (2004) studied Holocene
paleozoology of threatened and endangered fish species in the Owens River Valley of
California. They found that the proposed construction of several wetland and stream preserves may not be the solution for impacts on native fish species, thought to relate to overuse
of the Owens River water supply by Los Angeles and other urban areas. The threatened
fish species had survived extended periods of low water (droughts) in the past (e.g., the
mid-Holocene Altithermal climate interval), and a greater threat seems to be the
more recent introduction of competitors and predators rather than reduction in habitat
availability. In this case, the financial cost of constructing and maintaining preserves
might result in economic waste. Similarly, there has been extensive debate regarding the
status of mountain goats (Oreamos americanus) in the Olympic National Park,
Washington (Lyman 1998). Park officials were considering the extermination of mountain
goats in the park because, based on historical documentation, they thought the goats were
exotic. R. Lee Lyman has argued in several publications that the park did not survey the
paleozoological record to determine whether or not mountain goats were there in the past;
the historical record supports only ambiguous interpretations as to whether or not mountain
goats are exotic. These examples and many others (Frazier 2007; Graham 1988; edited
volumes by Lyman and Cannon 2004; Penn and Mysterud 2007b; Rick and Erlandson
2008) highlight the importance of temporal scale. Which scale is relevant for conservation
biology and restoration ecology?
SCALES FOR RESTORATION AND CONSERVATION
There has been much debate as to which temporal and spatial scales are appropriate for
restoration (Hunter 1996); we focus on temporal scales, which are relevant from a paleozoological perspective. At issue is the question: what should impacted environments be
118
Chapter 8 Ethnobiology as a Bridge between Science and Ethics
restored/conserved to? J. Baird Callicott (2002) outlines three scales from which to choose
for determining benchmarks for restoration and/or conservation. The microscale is the scale
of a human lifetime or shorter, and it is inappropriate because many human impacts are
longer term. The macroscale is the scale of evolutionary/geological time of tens of thousands to millions to billions of years ago. This scale is also inappropriate because at the evolutionary timescale ecological communities, species, and landscapes change in irreversible
ways. At this scale phenomena are always in a state of becoming something else. An example
of a restoration effort that ignored a paleozoological perspective and mistakenly (unknowingly) based restoration on an evolutionary benchmark was the failed reintroduction of
sea otters (Enhydra lutris) to the Oregon Coast (Lyman 1988; Valentine et al. 2008). The
reintroduced individuals were from an Alaskan sub-population. Paleozoological research
highlights that a morphological and genetic cline existed along the coast and that late
Holocene Oregon Coast sea otters were a different ecotype than the source population for
modern reintroduction. The reintroduced individuals do not appear to have been adapted
to the Oregon Coast, which represents an evolutionary scale difference.
Callicott argues that an intermediate scale, the mesoscale, is most appropriate for restoration and/or conservation. This is the scale at which ecological phenomena change. He
argues that such change occurs in centuries and millennia. Previous perspectives on benchmarks have been loosely ethnocentric in that pre-1492 conditions in North America (prior
to European arrival in the New World) were considered pristine environments. This perspective ignored the fact that humans existed in the New World for at least 14,000 years. On the
other hand, the opposite extreme has been adopted, that all human societies create “anthropogenic landscapes.” Some proponents of this perspective suggest that late Pleistocene
humans in the New World caused the extinctions of many genera of animals (Martin
1973). They argue that analog species from other parts of the world, which represent “the
closest living species” (such as elephants, African lions), should be introduced into North
American Pleistocene parks (Donlan et al. 2005). This perspective is inappropriate for a
number of reasons. First, if Rozzi (1999) is correct in asserting that a primary cause of
the current environmental crisis is that humans are increasingly divorced from nature, the
notion that all human impacts universally create anthropogenic landscapes supports that divorce. Second, there is very little to no archaeological evidence that humans caused the late
Pleistocene extinctions (Grayson and Meltzer 2003; Hill et al. 2008; Wolverton et al. 2009a),
yet the presumption that such was the case is a “poster child” for the anthropogenic landscape
perspective (Penn and Mysterud 2007a). Finally, this perspective ignores Callicott’s warning
that because evolution occurs the evolutionary time-frame is inappropriate for restoration
and conservation. Introduction of distantly related “closest living species” might promote
an ecological disaster of unimagined “anthropogenic” proportion in a North American
environment that has changed substantially during the Holocene (Rubenstein et al. 2006).
We agree with Callicott that the mesoscale is most appropriate for conservation biology
and restoration ecology.
ANALYTICAL METHODS
We present case studies of our own research, not because they represent better examples of
applied paleozoology than other studies, but because these are the examples with which we
are most familiar. Paleozoological data are analyzed at nominal (presence/absence) and/or
ordinal (rank order) scale using non-parametric statistics, such as Mann– Whitney U tests to
assess sample differences. This statistical approach avoids assumptions of normality because
Analytical Methods
119
paleozoological populations cannot be directly examined nor can they (often) be resampled.
It also acknowledges that quantitative paleozoological data are estimates of actual abundances2 based on counts of remains that passed through taphonomic histories (Grayson
1984; Lyman 2008).
White-tailed Deer Overabundance in Central Texas
During most of the Holocene (the last 10,000 years) humans and other large mammalian
predators (e.g., black bears [Ursus americanus], wolves [Canis lupus], pumas [Puma concolor], and even jaguars [Panthera onca]) roamed Texas. White-tailed deer (Odocoileus
virginianus) represented a common prey resource for these predators during that time.
Wildlife biology studies show that in the absence of predation, deer populations explode
to extremely high densities (Kie et al. 1983; Simard et al. 2008). White-tailed deer and
other ungulates exhibit an interesting adaptation when their population densities are high
for extended periods of time (e.g., decades); their body size becomes smaller (Geist 1998;
Wolverton 2008a). This response is the result of phenotypic plasticity, which represents
an adjustment to short-term environmental changes in food supply without much genetic
change. At high population densities, food-available-per-animal declines. An energetic
compromise is smaller size (Wolverton et al. 2009b). Native American human hunters
and large carnivores no longer exist in Texas, and central Texas is thought to have one of
the highest regional white-tailed deer population densities in North America (Teer 1984;
Walton 1999). Large native predators were exterminated in Texas to protect ranching interests during the last two centuries, and there are no federally recognized Native American
tribal lands in the state. With impacts of pest-level white-tailed deer populations, fire protection (which has disturbed the natural regime), and livestock ranching combined, much of
central Texas is currently witnessing ecosystem decay. This is happening in part because
over-browsing of native deciduous trees, saplings, and seedlings has given the watercompetitive, highly flammable, unpalatable (to deer and livestock) juniper (Juniperus
ashei) a competitive advantage throughout the region, essentially producing juniper monocultures in many areas (Russell and Fowler 1999, 2004). Central Texas, especially near
Austin and San Antonio and in areas to the west of those cities, is a food-poor anthropogenic
landscape for the white-tailed deer, which was shaped during the last two centuries. Given
that population densities of white-tailed deer are very high in this region and that habitat
quality is poor, we expect that the size of deer from Holocene archaeological and paleontological sites from central Texas should be significantly larger than that of modern deer.
To compare modern and prehistoric deer, we measured the astragalus (ankle bone) of
white-tailed deer (Fig. 8.2). The astragalus matures early in life and is likely to reflect differences in adult body size (Purdue 1987). Astragalus size among mid- to late Holocene deer
from central Texas is significantly larger than among modern unhunted deer from the same
region (Table 8.1; Fig. 8.3a). But the size of prehistoric deer cannot be distinguished from a
modern population that has been systematically sport-harvested in central Texas for the last
50 years (Table 8.1; Fig. 8.3b). Climate change during the mid- to late Holocene, coming out
of the dry and warm Altithermal, likely resulted in a higher quality habitat through time
(Ferring 1995), which should not—by itself—have made for smaller deer. A potential concern is that prehistoric deer astragali have not been identified to sex. It is unlikely, however,
2
“Actual abundances” can mean several things; paleozoological assemblages pass through histories typically
conceived of as a series of assemblages. The “life assemblage” or “biocoenose,” which represents the past living
community, is the target variable we are referring to here (see Lyman 2008: 21– 26 for discussion).
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Chapter 8 Ethnobiology as a Bridge between Science and Ethics
Figure 8.2
Measurements taken on whitetailed deer astragali. Measurements from Purdue
(1987:3, Figure 1).
that the difference in size between the modern and prehistoric deer is the result of differing
sex ratios. The prehistoric sample comprises roughly the same level of size variability as the
modern sample, which contains bucks and does (Table 8.1). A size distribution with bucks
and does in equivalent numbers is slightly bimodal and symmetrical. A difference in skewness from symmetry between the two samples would suggest a difference in sex ratio.
Pearson’s skewness of 0 represents perfect symmetry and that of þ/ –0.6 or greater
Table 8.1a Descriptive Statistics Measurements of White-Tailed Deer Astragali, mma
Sample
Paleozoological
Length
Thickness
Modern unhunted
Length
Thickness
Modern hunted
Length
Thickness
n
Median
Mean
Standard
deviation
CV (%)
Pearson’s
skewness
58
58
29.85
21.30
29.88
21.33
1.41
1.15
4.73
5.39
0.06
0.08
29
29
28.68
20.00
28.63
19.88
1.18
1.00
4.12
5.02
–0.13
–0.36
43
43
30.06
21.23
29.95
21.06
1.36
1.15
4.53
5.47
–0.24
–0.44
Table 8.1b Mann– Whitney U Comparisons for White-Tailed Deer Samples
Test
Paleo versus unhunted
Length
Thickness
Paleo versus hunted
Length
Thickness
a
After Wolverton et al. 2007: 549.
U-statistic
p-value
440.0
285.5
p , 0.001
p , 0.001
1207.5
1092.0
0.786
0.287
33
33
32
32
31
31
Length (mm)
Length (mm)
Analytical Methods
30
29
28
30
29
28
27
27
26
26
25
121
25
17
18
19 20 21 22
Thickness (mm)
Prehistoric
23
24
Modern Unmanaged
17
18
19 20 21 22
Thickness (mm)
Prehistoric
23
24
Modern Managed
Figure 8.3
Bivariate scatter diagram of white-tailed deer astragalus size: (a) comparing unhunted modern deer
to Holocene paleozoological deer from central Texas and (b) comparing hunted modern deer to the same paleozoological assemblage. Related descriptive and inferential statistics are in Table 8.1. Used with kind permission
from Springer ScienceþBusiness Media: Environmental Management, Vol. 39 (2007), p. 549, Wolverton et al.,
Figures 3 and 4.
represents significant skewness (Hildebrand 1986). Neither sample is skewed, suggesting
that both representatively sample bucks and does (Table 8.1). It is possible that the size
difference between modern-unhunted and prehistoric deer represents evolutionary change,
but this is unlikely given that white-tailed deer are known to be very phenotypically plastic
in terms of body size and given that the Fort Hood deer population dramatically increased in
size during the mid-twentieth century as systematic harvesting progressed annually
(Fig. 8.4). Fort Hood deer in the mid-twentieth century were similar in size to deer from
areas that are overcrowded in central Texas today, but they became larger in size with the
thinning effects of systematic managed sport harvest.
The broader implication of this case study is that the “deer problem” is common in parts
of North America as deer reach pest population levels, and its effects range from crop
damage to increases in automobile accidents (Côté et al. 2004). It is difficult for local municipalities to address the problem without reducing population density through culling.
Translocating deer to other areas is expensive, as is sterilization; culling, however, is
often an unpopular solution, because many people view killing wild animals as unethical
(Rolston 1988). The paleozoological perspective in central Texas can provide a disclosive
point of view through the lens of deep time (Wolverton et al. 2007). Given this disclosure,
it may be ethical to thin populations through managed harvest or predator restoration.
Black Bears in Missouri
By 1900 black bears (Ursus americanus) were extirpated from Missouri (Schwartz and
Schwartz 2001); bears were translocated from Minnesota into Arkansas during the mid1900s (Smith and Clark 1994). The translocated population has grown and now ranges
into southern Missouri. Very little is known regarding historical populations of black
bears in the Midwest because they were eradicated by Euro-Americans during westward
expansion and settlement. Bear remains were excavated from two natural trap caves—
Lawson Cave and Jerry Long Cave—in central and eastern Missouri during the 1950s.
Chapter 8 Ethnobiology as a Bridge between Science and Ethics
Dressed Weight (Ibs) & Density (Deer/1000 acres)
122
80
70
R = 0.89
R2 = 0.79
p < 0.01
60
50
40
30
R = –0.45
R2 = 0.20
p = 0.05
20
10
1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006
Year
Body Mass
Population Density
Figure 8.4
Mean field dressed weight (lb) increase in 1.5-year-old bucks at Fort Hood as systematic managed
harvest became established and progressed from 1971 to 2005 (closed squares; solid line). A corresponding decrease
in population density is recorded for much of the same period (open triangles; dashed line).
The caves are traps because they are deep vertical fissures into which animals fell but from
which they could not escape (Wolverton 2006). Radiocarbon dates and associated artifacts
indicate that the remains date to the historic period within the last 250 years before present
(Wolverton 2001). The remains of 22 individuals were recovered from the caves, and these
represent the largest record of Missouri black bears prior to extirpation.
The remains represent relatively large individuals, prompting speculation in the mid1900s that the deposits were either late Pleistocene in age or that the remains approached
the lower limit of grizzly bear size (Wells 1959). Neither of these is the case; instead, the
size of the remains relates to age- and sex-specific behavioral characteristics that resulted
in the entrapment of young males (Wolverton 2006). Figure 8.5a shows the age distribution
of black bears from the caves; Figure 8.5b illustrates that tooth size of the natural trap bears
overlaps with the upper half of a size distribution (the male half) from a modern sample.
Tooth size of the natural trap bears significantly differs from that of modern females but
cannot be distinguished from modern males (Table 8.2). This is of interest to modern wildlife
biologists (see below).
Bears were attracted to the caves by carrion, and it is likely that individual bears entered
in the search for food. Remains of cubs are uncommon (one individual is present) indicating
that the individuals that fell into the traps were not attempting to establish dens. Other species
represented in the fauna tend to be scavengers, such as pigs and turkey vultures (Wolverton
2008b). Why were young adult male black bears attracted to carrion in the caves, and not
members of other age/sex classes?
Male bears enter a very stressful period at the onset of and during young adulthood
(Bunnell and Tait 1981). They leave the company of their mothers and must establish
territories in a matrix of territorial older males through competition for food and mates.
Young adult males are known to venture more commonly into areas of human habitation
to search for food (e.g., garbage); they are more likely to be drawn to and captured in
Analytical Methods
(b)
35
30.0
30
25
25.0
20
Length (mm)
Frequency of Molars
(a)
123
15
10
5
0
M2
20.0
15.0
1
2
3 4 5 6 7
Tooth Wear Stage
8
9
M3
10.0
Natural traps Modern Natural traps Modern
Figure 8.5
Tooth wear age structure (a) for historic-period black bear remains recovered from Lawson and Jerry
Long caves in Missouri. Tooth size distributions (b) for modern Midwestern and Lawson/Jerry Long Cave black
bears. Related descriptive and inferential statistics can be found in Table 8.2. Reprinted from Ursus, Vol. 19 (2008),
p. 181, Figure 4.
baited traps and to perish in altercations with humans (e.g., automobile collisions)
(Beckmann and Berger 2003; Garshelis and Pelton 1981). Although wildlife biologists
know that young adult bears are vulnerable to accidental deaths, conflict with humans,
and entrapment, it has not been established whether or not this pattern is a modern phenomenon produced by collapsing territory size or if it relates to life history adaptation in
Table 8.2a Descriptive and Inferential Statistics for Black Bear Tooth Measurements, mma
Source sample
Natural trap
M2 length
M2 width
M3 length
M3 width
Modern
M2 length
M2 width
M3 length
M3 width
Modern males
M2 length
M2 width
M3 length
M3 width
Modern females
M2 length
M2 width
M3 length
M3 width
n
Median
Mean
Standard
deviation
CV (%)
21
21
18
18
28.20
16.00
16.20
12.80
27.75
15.99
16.09
12.82
1.54
0.95
1.09
0.83
5.6
5.9
6.8
6.5
30b
30b
22
22
26.42
15.88
15.34
12.61
26.41
15.95
15.23
12.38
1.86
1.35
1.43
1.46
7.0
8.5
9.4
11.8
14
14
11
11
27.86
17.51
16.06
13.19
27.83
17.02
15.89
13.21
1.18
0.91
0.92
1.11
4.2
5.4
5.8
8.4
14b
14b
11b
11b
25.68
15.31
14.22
11.81
25.42
15.20
14.56
11.55
1.27
0.88
1.58
1.30
5.0
5.8
10.8
11.3
124
Chapter 8 Ethnobiology as a Bridge between Science and Ethics
Table 8.2b Mann– Whitney U Comparisons for Black Bear Samples
Test
Males versus natural traps
M2 length
M2 width
M3 length
M3 width
Females versus natural traps
M2 length
M2 width
M3 length
M3 width
U-statistic
p-value
139.5
65.5
110.0
81.5
0.382
,0.01
0.827
0.431
38.5
71.0
45.0
46.0
,0.01
0.01
0.02
0.02
a
After Wolverton 2008b: 182.
Includes bears of unknown sex; those assigned to females were smaller than all known females.
b
bears. Indeed, habitat fragmentation/displacement by humans has greatly reduced the black
bear’s range during the last four centuries. Our data suggest that the vulnerability of young
adult males to accidental deaths and their propensity for risky behavior relates not to modern
impacts but to their behavioral ecology. Without the temporal perspective that paleozoology
provides, this evolutionary cause of young adult bear mortality could not be determined. A
shift in temporal scale reveals that young adult male bears pass through a selective filter that
is quite natural and that wildlife managers should not seek to alter that pattern.
Late Holocene Freshwater Mussel Biogeography
in North Texas
Freshwater mussels (unionids) have experienced a dramatic decline in numbers and distribution throughout the United States. It has been estimated that, of the 297 species in
North America, 12% are extinct and 23% are threatened or endangered (Galbraith et al.
2008). Freshwater mussels possess biological characteristics that render them susceptible
to range reductions and extirpations through habitat fragmentation (Vaughn and Taylor
1999). Unionids are long-lived, sedentary organisms that spend a portion of their lives as
fish ectoparasites. As a result, anthropogenic impacts such as overharvesting, stream modifications, water quality deterioration, introduction of alien species, and apathetic land management policies have reduced many unionid populations (Bogan 1993; Lydeard et al.
2004). Unfortunately, the magnitude of these impacts has not been well documented, and
in regions where historical records are absent, it is unclear whether or not contemporary surveys are representative of past and present freshwater mussel communities.
This case study compares the late Holocene and modern unionid biogeography of
the Upper Trinity River using zooarchaeological data with a focus on the bankclimber
(Plectomerus dombeyanus). The Trinity River in north Texas comprises the Clear, West,
and Elm Forks along with their associated tributaries. The rivers were impounded between
1914 and 1957 for flood control (Dowell and Breeding 1967). Archaeological sites relevant
to this study are located near impoundments. These sites date to the late Holocene between
1450 and 600 years before present based on radiocarbon dates of ash deposits (Lintz et al.
2008) and associated artifacts (Ferring and Wolverton, unpublished data).
Analytical Methods
125
Little is known about the distribution of freshwater mussels in the Upper Trinity (Neck
1990). The few historical records concern the Elm Fork near Dallas (e.g., Neck 1990; Read
1954; Strecker 1931) and the Clear and West Forks near Fort Worth (Mauldin 1972).
Surveys have focused on reservoirs and nearby rivers (Howells 2006), and contemporary
biologists describe the Upper Trinity River as being intermittent upstream from Dallas but
supporting a diverse community of freshwater mussels (e.g., Neck 1990). This high diversity
is thought to relate to diverse habitat and fish stocking in nearby reservoirs (Read 1954).
During the early 1950s investigators observed the deleterious effects of industrial effluent
on mussel populations near Dallas, causing the extirpation of at least one unionid species
(Read 1954).
Unionid biogeography within the Trinity River has been categorized into an “upland”
and “lowland” component (Neck 1990). The upland component of the Trinity is delineated
by the absence of species thought only to occur in large perennial sandy-bottomed streams,
characterizing much of the lower Trinity River north of Houston. The upland habitat of the
Trinity River near Dallas and Fort Worth was thought to have been poor for certain lowland
species (Strecker 1931). The classification of the Trinity River into these two faunal components stems from a small number of early surveys near Dallas following the impoundment
of the Trinity River (Neck 1990). Consequently, these surveys are likely representative of
human impacts related to construction of impoundments on and release of wastewater effluent into the Trinity River. The unionid species within the upper Trinity during the 1930s
should be those that are tolerant to changes in hydrological characteristics associated with
impoundments and modern wastewater release (see Vaughn and Taylor 1999; Watters
1999). Given the problems with historical unionid records (see above), the late Holocene
zooarchaeological record provides a means to test whether or not lowland species existed
in the Upper Trinity prior to impoundment.
Twelve unionid species were identified from four archaeological sites in the Upper
Trinity River drainage. The bankclimber (P. dombeyanus) is considered a member of the
lowland component of the Trinity River (see Table 8.3). Shells of this species have been
recovered at archaeological sites on the Clear and West Forks of the Trinity River and on
Denton Creek, suggesting a ubiquitous distribution during the late Holocene. This species
predominately occurs in perennial sluggish lowland rivers, near stream banks, and in shallow
waters with mud sand or gravel substratum (Howells et al. 1996). In Texas, modern records
for this species occur mainly in the eastern and southern portions of the state downstream
from the Upper Trinity River.
The presence of P. dombeyanus at these four zooarchaeological sites represents an extralimital record for this region. The habitat requirements of this species suggest that the Upper
Trinity River and associated tributaries were not intermittent but were in fact shallow, slow
Table 8.3 List of “Lowland” Species and their Presence or Absence in the Upper Trinity
River Drainage
Lowland species
Common name
Upper Trinity River
Fusconaia flava
Megalonaias nervosa
Plectomerus dombeyanus
Strophitus undulatus
Truncilla donaciformis
Wabash pigtoe
Washboard
Bankclimber
Squawfoot
Fawnsfoot
A
A
Pa
A
A
a
Denotes late Holocene paleozoological presence in the region.
126
Chapter 8 Ethnobiology as a Bridge between Science and Ethics
moving, sand bottomed rivers prior to impoundment; other species found at these archaeological sites support this assertion (Randklev et al. 2009). The historical distribution of
lowland species in the Trinity River most likely reflects a tolerance gradient to human
impacts and a paucity of historical distribution records. The absence of historical records
for the bankclimber in the Upper Trinity may reflect poor sampling of species intolerant
of the acute changes that have occurred in this region. Modern studies of freshwater mussels
describe extirpation gradients downstream of impoundments; that is, species richness tends
to increase with linear distance from these impacts (see Vaughn and Taylor 1999).
Interestingly, the bankclimber is considered an opportunistic species tolerant of anthropogenic impacts (Miller et al. 1992; Peacock and James 2002). Why are these species and
other lowland ones not found in the Upper Trinity River today? Additional zooarchaeological data could provide answers to this question by providing appropriate time frames to
assess when lowland component species were reduced in both abundance and distribution
in the Upper Trinity River.
The Biogeographic Potential of Archaeological
Organic Residues
Over the past 20 years, the popularity of organic residue analysis in archaeology has
increased (Eerkens and Barnard 2007). In part, this is due to improvements in analytical
chemistry as well as the realization that organic compounds such as DNA, proteins,
lipids, alkaloids, and starches can be preserved for lengthy periods in a wide variety of contexts including in bone (Evershed et al. 1995), within ceramic artifacts (Craig et al. 2005), in
mummified remains (Pääbo 1985), on lithic tools (Kooyman et al. 2001), and in fossils
(Asara et al. 2007).
Archaeological residue studies have focused on addressing questions of artifact function
and/or dietary practices (e.g., Craig et al. 2005; Eerkens 2005). They have also addressed
other topics such as the origins of domestication (Outram et al. 2009) and the translation
of Mayan hieroglyphs (Hall et al. 1990). The success of these studies and others has resulted
from collaboration between researchers from diverse disciplines relying on a “weight of
evidence” approach (O’Hara 1988). Outram et al. (2009), for example, use skeletal
morphology, dental wear patterns, and organic residue analysis in concert to demonstrate
the likely domestication of horses in Kazakhstan circa 5500 years before present.
As the development of organic residue analysis continues, we believe that the study of
archaeological residues has the potential to shed light on the past when other lines of evidence, such as faunal remains, are unavailable (Lyman 1996: 120). Further, the information
gained from such studies can also inform us about the biogeography of prehistoric taxa.
Proteins, in particular, hold promise for biogeographic studies of prehistoric organisms.
Although they present methodological challenges, including the difficulty of extraction from
ceramic artifacts (Craig and Collins 2002), protein residues possess qualities ideally suited
for biogeographic research. As products of DNA, many proteins are taxonomically specific;
with some exceptions, their unique amino acid sequences can be attributed to particular
genera or even species of organisms (Barnard et al. 2007). Proteins are more abundant
than DNA, increasing their likelihood of survival and subsequent extraction (Barnard
et al. 2007). Also, the very properties that make them difficult to extract from ceramic
matrices ensure that they are not lost from archaeological samples through exposure to
water. Surprisingly, protein residues have even been demonstrated to adhere to non-ceramic
surfaces for several thousand years despite exposure to moisture (Kooyman et al. 2001). The
Discussion
127
popularity of proteomics, particularly in medical and forensic sciences, provides a growing
body of research on protein extraction and characterization in addition to ample opportunities for collaboration.
Protein residues recovered from artifacts can provide evidence regarding the past distribution of species. This can be used to guide modern conservation/restoration efforts.
Although consideration of temporal and spatial provenience of artifacts is required in
order to rule out the confounding effects of long distance transport (Lyman 1996), the identification of taxa via residue analysis could play important roles in several debates.
The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) considered reintroducing elk
(Cervus elaphus) to a region of the Ozark Highlands in the light of historical accounts documenting their presence prior to the mid-1800s. Noting the failure of the MDC to consider
alternative lines of evidence, Harpole (2004) inventoried Missouri paleozoological samples
with elk remains to ascertain whether elk ever lived within and around the proposed reintroduction area during the Holocene. She concludes that the absence of elk remains within the
reintroduction area argues against the MDC’s reintroduction plan. Although Harpole’s point
is well made, she explains that the scarcity of faunal remains in this region highlights a need
for skepticism of her results, which may lead to her data being ignored by policy-makers.
Analysis of artifact residues could extend her claims. Ceramic remains are common in
late prehistoric archaeological assemblages in Missouri (O’Brien and Wood 1998), and if
several artifacts from multiple sites in the reintroduction area were to yield quantifiable
and identifiable residues (a probable outcome) the results would be relevant. If no residues
from elk were to occur, Harpole’s (2004) cautionary note on the proposed reintroduction by
MDC would be supported. Protein analysis offers a unique opportunity to evaluate the
debate over Pleistocene megafaunal extinction. Although we are skeptical regarding
claims of overkill, a comprehensive residue analysis of Clovis-era projectile points could
provide the “smoking gun” by demonstrating which species were being hunted by
Pleistocene peoples. Kooyman et al. (2001) have already demonstrated the feasibility of
this strategy, identifying protein residues on stone tools that link Late Pleistocene hunters
to previously undocumented prey such as felines (Felidae), bears (Ursus spp.) and the extinct
North American horse (Equus conversidens). Further studies, if successful in identifying a
wide range of now extinct species on artifacts, would be a meaningful line of evidence in the
extinction debate. Hyland et al. (1990) are among the first to explicitly recognize the relevance of protein residue analysis to biogeography. In their study of archaeological residues
from the Shoop site, Pennsylvania, they identified cervid protein residues on a Paleoindian
uniface. Unfortunately, they were unable to resolve which particular species of cervid was
present. However, they insightfully commented that, “depending on the type of cervid ultimately identified, very different environmental reconstructions may be developed for this
part of central Pennsylvania” (Hyland et al. 1990: 110).
There are several methodological and interpretive issues in archaeological residue
analysis, and caution is required in the evaluation of results (Brandt et al. 2002).
Nevertheless, we believe that its continued development, particularly with regard to the
use of protein-based strategies, will provide useful qualitative and quantitative data in a
wide range of disciplines.
DISCUSSION
Ethnobiology brings an explicitly evolutionary perspective to environmental science and
ethics; this is especially the case with applied paleozoology because of its inherently
128
Chapter 8 Ethnobiology as a Bridge between Science and Ethics
temporal perspective. Although Callicott’s recommendation that benchmarks for conservation and restoration are most pragmatic at the ecological mesoscale, the effects of modern
human impacts are evolutionary in proportion (Russell 2003). Because human impacts
(e.g., chemical contamination and habitat fragmentation) change allele frequencies in
species’ gene pools, they are indisputably evolutionary. An excellent example is the
impact of the pollutant tributyl tin (TBT), which is used as an anti-molluscicide on boats
and piers, on marine populations of dog whelks (Nucella lapillus). Experiments show that
TBT causes imposex (the development of male sexual characteristics by females) through
increasing testosterone production in this mollusk, which results in the growth of a small
penis in females that can block egg production (Walker et al. 2001). The impact of TBT
pollution thus is a direct population-level response in this species. Some individuals
simply cannot reproduce. Gibbs (1993) discovered that individuals in one population
evolved modified genitalia that allowed them to persist in the presence of TBT, which
represents a substantial shift in the evolutionary history of this species. Though these
impacts appear to be reversible and short term, pollution control of TBT cannot reverse
the evolutionary, permanent effects on the dog whelk’s gene pool, and humans have changed the trajectory of evolution in this species. That ethnobiologists commonly work with
the evolving relationships among humans and ecosystems (including constituents of ecological communities, such as dog whelks) from an evolutionary perspective puts them in
a position to disclose the evolutionary impacts of the current environmental crisis in
terms of culture and biology.
Although recognizable with some effort, the link between ethnobiology and environmental philosophy and environmental science is not very explicit for several reasons
(Lepofsky 2009). First, though environmental science is inherently interdisciplinary, its
practitioners are only recently acknowledging a need to extend the communication of
their results more clearly through education, policy, and public outreach. Environmental
philosophy, particularly in the realm of ethics, can assist development of policy in collaboration with environmental scientists. However, the sparse record of collaboration between
these two parties indicates that there is a large communication gap. Ethnobiologists can
bridge this gap, because the products of our research, by the nature of the field itself, transcend cultural, temporal, and spatial boundaries.
A second reason has to do with methodology. Environmental sciences, particularly
subdisciplines such as ecotoxicology and environmental chemistry, are experimental.
Experimental results are highly controlled and replicable, but such is not the nature of methodology in ethnobiology. Ethnobiologists rely on the weight of evidence to draw conclusions (sensu Ereshefsky 1992; O’Hara 1988); hypotheses are rejected as explanations
for patterns and trends when there is no, or very little, evidence to support them. Swetnam
et al. (1999) provide excellent examples from the realm of historical ecology in which they
use multiple lines of evidence, including repeated photography, dendrochronology, aerial
photography, and historical records to infer whether or not changes in plant communities
are the product of natural changes (e.g., the products of fire histories) or modern human
impacts (e.g., overgrazing by livestock).
A third reason is the distraction of “anthropogenism.” Much attention has been devoted
to dismantling the myth of the “ecologically noble savage” (Alvard 1998; Peacock 1998; see
references in Penn and Mysterud 2007b), but this myth has been replaced with an equally
damaging dogma implying that because humans do not conserve resources in ecologically
noble ways all humans cause major environmental damage. Rozzi (1999) attempts to erode
the epistemological difference between humans and nature; he views such erosion as essential if humanity is to value nature in ways that solve environmental problems. At what point
References
129
in human evolution did human actions prevent more ecosystem services than they provided?
Whether or not hunter-gatherers intentionally practiced conservation, though important
anthropologically, may not be of great concern to environmental scientists because the
spatial and temporal scales (local and regional) of their impacts were low compared to
those of industrial and post-industrial societies (continental and global). Hunn (1982)
terms the lower environmental impact of such small-scale societies “epiphenomenal conservation,” which operates through a process of what Wyndham (2009) refers to as “subtle ecologies.” Subtle ecologies are human – environment interactions comprising “slow relations
that rely on diffuse causalities and micro-effects related to invisible or fleeting action”
(Wyndham 2009: 272). A monolithic anthropogenism ignores these subtle ecologies.
CONCLUSION
Paleozoological, paleoethnobotanical, and/or historical ecological datasets must be consulted in diverse ways. Indeed, taphonomic histories of archaeological and paleontological
assemblages vary by context (Lyman 1994; Nagaoka et al. 2008). The task of the paleoethnobiologist is then to recognize the diverse nature of these records (which most practitioners
do) and their unique potential applications in conservation and restoration (see Lepofsky
2009; Lyman 2006; Stahl 1996; Swetnam 1999; Wolverton et al. 2007). The most important
value of these applied-paleo approaches, however, may not be the precise outcomes of case
studies; instead, it is the shift in temporal scale that they provide. “Sustainability” is defined
in environmental science as “solutions to environmental problems that benefit future generations.” We find the perspective of applied paleozoology priceless in terms of promoting
long-term solutions. This advantage, however, needs ethnobiology and its constituent disciplines as a bridge lending multiple disclosive perspectives to modern environmental science
through transcendence of spatial, temporal, and cultural paradigms.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank Barney Venables, James Kennedy, Lisa Nagaoka, John Cornelius, Kevin Cagle,
and especially Lee Lyman and Nancy Turner.
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Chapter
9
Ethnobotany: The Study of
People – Plant Relationships
JUSTIN M. NOLAN
Department of Anthropology, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR
NANCY J. TURNER
School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
INTRODUCTION
133
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ETHNOBOTANY
134
METHODS IN ETHNOBOTANY
139
CLASSIC CASE STUDIES AND THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS TO ETHNOBOTANICAL PRAXIS 141
INTERGENERATIONAL RESEARCH IN MEDICAL ETHNOBOTANY
141
USING PALEOETHNOBOTANY TO UNDERSTAND THE PAST: ÖTZI AND
KWÄDAY DÄN TS’INCHÍ
141
SOLVING THE MYSTERY OF A NOTORIOUS ILLNESS: ETHNOBOTANY
AND CYCAD TOXICITY
143
CONCLUSION
143
REFERENCES
145
INTRODUCTION
Ethnobotany’s development has challenged the prevailing trend in academic studies of the
twentieth century of disciplinary specialization. It reflects congruence with our human
efforts to understand our place in the world. It parallels other interdisciplinary fields:
environmental history, political ecology, cultural ecology, environmental ethics, ecological
economics, and ecological restoration.
Linked to ethnobotany are taxonomy, nutrition, pharmacognosy, phytochemistry, palynology, ecology, and conservation biology. Ethnobotany has also been constructed to
include studies of those life forms traditionally, but no longer, considered as plants: algae,
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
133
134
Chapter 9 Ethnobotany: The Study of People– Plant Relationships
lichens, and fungi. On the social sciences and humanities side are anthropology, political
science, geography, environmental studies, economics, psychology, linguistics, and philosophy, among others.
Ethnobotany can lead to a fascinating and fulfilling career, whether in a university, a
community, government, international agencies, or non-government organizations. There
is room for people who enjoy analytical and statistical methods, for those who prefer qualitative methods, and for those who like to use multiple-method approaches. Although some
ethnobotanical studies can be conducted in a botanical, archaeological, linguistics or
computer laboratory or in a herbarium (where plant specimens are identified and stored as
records), most ethnobotanists find that working collaboratively with other people at a personal and community level is a major and essential part of research in ethnobotany. Most
ethnobotanical research requires fieldwork in the outdoors for at least part of any project.
Participatory research is common.
Methods that ethnobotanists employ include: note taking, photography, tape and video
recording, statistics, collecting and preparing plant specimens, microscope work, analysis
of nutrients and plant chemicals, genetic studies, and ecological survey work. Presentation
of results is by writing for publication, giving public presentations, conducting workshops,
teaching, and outreach. Collaborative work between academic ethnobotanists and Indigenous or other local plant and cultural specialists can benefit both communities and researchers.
Ethnobotanical studies need not be confined to far-away places or different cultures; people
everywhere have knowledge of plants.
Ethnobotany has achieved a relatively high profile in recent years. A quick web check of
“ethnobotany” in October 2008 revealed that there were 669,000 Google hits for this term,
33,000 more than in a similar search in March 2005. The exotic nature of some ethnobotanical studies, notably the work of ethnobotanists such as Richard Evans Schultes (Schultes
and Hofmann 1987) and his students such as Wade Davis (1997) and Mark Plotkin (1993)
with remote peoples and plants of the South American Amazon, has captured the imagination of many, and has even resulted in Hollywood images of ethnobotanists in romanticized
situations, interacting with new tribal peoples in far-away jungles and “discovering” new
medicines for treating cancer or other difficult diseases. While there is an undeniable lure
of adventure in ethnobotanical research, it is the recognition of the critical importance of
the diversity of environments and human knowledge systems based on them that drives
these and other ethnobotanists in their work. Most ethnobotanists love plants and diverse
ecosystems, and have a deep interest in human adaptations and innovations, which allow
some people to live in places where many others would not be able to survive. Most ethnobotanists believe that the collective environmental knowledge of humanity is essential in
efforts to conserve the earth’s biodiversity. Certainly, one of the striking correlations that
Wade Davis (2001) and other ethnobotanists have helped to identify is the close correspondence between the earth’s biological diversity and its cultural diversity (Carlson and Maffi
2004). Regions of high biological diversity in the world correlate strongly with the regions of
highest linguistic and cultural diversity (Stepp et al. 2005).
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ETHNOBOTANY
In 1893, a unique collection of botanical objects exhibited at the Chicago World’s
Fair caught the attention and imagination of John W. Harshberger, an archaeologist with
a keen interest in plants. This collection inspired Harshberger to propose a new field
of study, written up in the Botanical Gazette in an article entitled “The purposes of
The Development of Ethnobotany
135
ethno-botany” (1896). He emphasized the significance of the World’s Fair collection:
“Never before in the history of American archaeology had such a completed series been
brought together for study and comparison . . . plant products in the form of food, dress,
and household utensils being very largely represented. . . .” He suggested that the topic it
represented should become a designated area of study, “ethno-botany,” which would aid
in “. . . elucidating the cultural position of the tribes who used the plants for food, shelter
or clothing.” As a male academic of the late nineteenth century, his writings and ideas represented the state of society and anthropological thought of his day. In discussing how comparisons could be made in plant use across human cultures, he submitted, “The well-known
classification of men into savage, pastoral, agricultural and civilized will roughly serve our
purpose. . . .” He described the Indigenous peoples of the southwestern United States
simplistically as follows: “. . . a roving people, traveling from place to place in search of
game and settling only long enough to plant a little corn, beans and pumpkins to break
the monotony of a too strict animal diet. Where they did not pursue agriculture, they subsisted on the seeds of wild grasses and herbs. The cliff dwelling peoples, probably driven
to the mountain fastnesses, had practically left the hunter stage and had begun to enter
the agricultural stage” (Harshberger 1896: 146).
Harshberger’s conception of ethnobotany—recording the uses of plants by “primitive”
peoples—was undeniably limited in scope, but it was a beginning. Some of his suggestions,
such as creating ethnobotanical gardens that would feature culturally important plants,
stimulating interest in their names and applications by various peoples, and providing
specimens and opportunities for scientific study, are as relevant today as they were over a
century ago. Others became captivated, and many researchers began documenting ethnobotanical knowledge of the peoples and languages they were studying.
Meanwhile, anthropology as a field was maturing and, with it, ethnobotany was also
expanding its horizons. In 1994, Richard Ford published an elegant “tree-ring” schematic
to represent the evolution of ethnobotany as a discipline since its inception (Ford 1994).
Harshberger’s cultural evolution assumptions are no longer accepted. The shift in
underlying premises has led to a more inclusive, effective, and realistic approach in ethnobotany. The beginnings of this respectful relationship are seen in the work of Richard Evans
Schultes (1915 – 2001), whose compelling photographs and participatory research with
Amazonian healers inspired a whole generation of ethnobotanists, and raised the profile,
status, and legitimacy of traditional healers and other specialists both within their communities and beyond (Anderson 2001).
Ties with cognitive anthropology opened the field of ethnobotanical and ethnobiological classification, pioneered by Harold Conklin with his doctoral dissertation, The Relation
of Hanunóo Culture to the Plant World (1954), which reflected meticulous research and
observations of one agricultural group in the Philippines. Conklin discovered a surprisingly
extensive lexicon of plants, consisting of over 1800 terms, categorized by an elegant, hierarchical principle of organization. Brent Berlin and his colleagues (Berlin 1972, 1992; Berlin
et al. 1966) followed with numerous proposals of universal principles of classification and
nomenclature applicable across human languages. During the 1970s and 1980s, researchers
constructed and contested theories of human cognition vis-à-vis ethnological evaluations of
culturally salient plants and their corresponding names and uses (Brown 1984; Dougherty
1978; Hunn and Brown, 2011). The cognitive dimension of ethnobotany is relevant to
understanding interrelations between language, thought, and memory in human societies
(Nolan 2002, 2007; Shipman and Boster 2008).
Studies of the role of plants in folklore, narrative, ceremony and worldview have
emerged within ethnobotany, and the variation in knowledge and perspectives of plants
136
Chapter 9 Ethnobotany: The Study of People– Plant Relationships
across societal subgroups based on age, gender, social status, and specialization has also
gained interest (Table 9.1). As the environmental movement became prominent in the late
1960s and early 1970s, ethnobotanists examined the role of a people’s knowledge of
plants and environments in the areas of conservation, and how a culture’s underlying philosophy and worldview can influence its collective behavior towards other species and the
environment in general. This area of focus was certainly strengthened by the publication
of the Brundtland Commission report, Our Common Future (United Nations Commission
on Environment and Development 1987), which emphasized the need to recognize
Indigenous and local peoples’ knowledge systems in our global search for sustainability
and biodiversity conservation. Since this time, Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK),
including diverse traditional land and resource management methods, has been a prominent
and important aspect of ethnobotanical studies (Anderson 2005b; Deur and Turner 2005;
Minnis and Elisens 2000; Nazarea 1999). Ethnobotany has become more and more international in its development. Ethnobotanical researchers are prominent in many countries
of the world, especially in India, where there are said to be more ethnobotanists per
capita than in any other country (see Jain 2002).
The international status of ethnobotany in the twenty-first century was prominently
reflected in August 2005 at the Fourth International Congress of Ethnobotany, held in
Istanbul, Turkey. Hosted by Yeditepe University, with ethnobotanist Z. Füsun Ertug as
Congress Secretary, the Congress theme, “Ethnobotany: At the Junction of the Continents
and the Disciplines,” highlighted the strategic location of ethnobotany at the intersections
of disciplines, knowledge systems, cultures, and regions. Ethnobotanists attended this congress from dozens of different countries, from Nepal to Argentina, from Mexico to Iran
(Ertug 2006).
Table 9.1 Examples of Some Contemporary Ethnobotanical Research
Topic within ethnobotany
Notes on topic
Paleoethnobotany
Ethnobotany of past cultures,
including traditional
management systems for plant
resources
Historical ecology
Understanding people –plant
relationships through time
and space
Identification and description of
nutritional components of native
plants in human diet and
medicine
Assessing bioactivity of
medicinal plant compounds;
designating the cross-cultural
applications and significance of
botanical families
Discovering universal systems of
naming and categorizing living
things; calibrating folk and
scientific thought
Nutritional ethnobotany and
foodways
Medical ethnobotany
Ethnobotanical
classification systems
Some example references
Ford 1978, 1985; Fritz 2005;
Lepofsky et al. 2003; Minnis
1991; Minnis and Elisens
2000; Peacock 1998; Pearsall
2001
Balée 1998; Ellen 2006; Minnis
and Elisens 2000
Anderson 2005a; Etkin 2006;
Johns 1996; Pieroni and Price
2006
Etkin 1990; Moerman 1991,
1996; Quinlan 2004; Quinlan
et al. 2002; Stepp 2004
Berlin 1992; Brown 1984; Hunn
1982, 1990
(Continued)
The Development of Ethnobotany
137
Table 9.1 (Continued)
Topic within ethnobotany
Cognitive ethnobotany
Symbolic ethnobotany
Sensory and perceptual
ecology
Quantitative and
experimental ethnobotany
Intellectual property rights
Evolutionary ecology
Interpretive ethnobotany
and traditional ecological
knowledge
Ethnobotany and
agrodiversity
Traditional agricultural
systems
Ethnobotany and
conservation
Political ecology
Historic migrations and
ethnobotany
Notes on topic
Some example references
Studying distribution and forms
of plant knowledge, learning
styles, knowledge transmission
Examines plants through ritual in
folkloristics and ceremonial
healing
Focuses on human sensory
recognition of plants and
perceptual distinctiveness
Measuring biodiversity within
geographic regions, applying
multivariate statistics to assess
the use potential of botanical
families, genera, and species
Negotiation of legal rights
pertaining to Indigenous
botanical wisdom, building
equitable partnerships
Demonstrates how ethnobotanical
knowledge relates to human
cognitive development,
adaptation, and survival through
time and space
Emphasizes traditional wisdom
and philosophies, highlights
Indigenous teachings and
narratives regarding native plant
sustainability
Investigating germplasm
conservation; implementing
“seed banking” of local cultivars
to propagate variation and choice
in regional cultures
Interprets traditional cultivation
strategies for selected cultivars,
shifting subsistence practices,
adaptations to seasonal stress
Identifying and safeguarding
biota in accordance with
Indigenous priorities
Examines local access to plant
resources, institutional policies,
dimensions of management and
control, grassroots activism
Analyzes how human movements
relate to ethnobotanical cultural
memory of economic botany
Ingold 2004; Nolan 2002, 2007;
Sanga and Ortalli 2004; Zarger
and Stepp 2004
Quave and Pieroni 2007;
Vildarich 2007
Alcorn 1994, 1995; Boster 1985;
Casagrande 2004; Jernigan
2006
Anderson 1993a,b; Martin 1995;
Prance et al. 1987; Stepp et al.
2005; Ticktin et al. 2002
Brush 1996; Moran et al. 2001
Atran et al. 2004; Ellen 2006;
Mithen 2006
Turner 2006, 2008
Balick 1996; Brush 2004;
Campbell 2005; Nazarea 1999;
Veteto and Skarbø 2009
Estabrook 1998; Nabhan 1989
Cunningham 2001; Minnis
2000; Rea 1997
Anderson 2000; Nabhan 2002
Pieroni and Vanderbroek 2007;
Ramirez-Sosa 2009
Note: The references are examples only; most of these areas are represented by dozens of associated research
projects and publications, many of them published in the Journal of Ethnobiology.
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Chapter 9 Ethnobotany: The Study of People– Plant Relationships
One of the most important current tasks is the development of ethical protocols for the
study of traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK (see Bannister and Hardison, 2011;
Gilmore and Eshbaugh, 2011). Traditional ecological knowledge is associated, among
other things, with biodiversity research, “bioprospecting,” and cultural conservation
(Alexiades and Laird 2002; Maffi 2005; Nolan and Robbins 1999; Zent 1999). Since
1990, globalization and commercialization have dramatically changed the legal environment
for ethnobotanical research. No longer associated with mere list making, ethnobotanists are
strategically positioned to integrate the priorities of community members with ecological
conservation initiatives (Carlson and Maffi 2004). Ethnobotanists who work on the ground,
alongside Indigenous people, are keen to recognize the value of local knowledge in addition
to their social, ecologic, and economic priorities (Maffi 2005). Many ethnobotanists have
begun to design partnerships to ensure that benefits will be shared in ways that are equitable
and responsible (Alexiades and Laird 2002; Tobin 2002).
Ethnobotany is closely linked to ethnoecology (see Davidson and Johnson, 2011).
Ethnoecology entails interpreting complex resource management strategies. The intrinsic
value of diverse ways of knowing, and perpetuating local knowledge, are foci of ethnoecology. This field also emphasizes how and why human feelings, attitudes, values, memories,
and emotions become associated culturally with plant-based foods, medicines, and other
natural resources (Anderson 1996; Davidson and Johnson, 2011). Knowledge of regional
ecosystems, when examined through expressive traditions and customs of use, can revivify
resource philosophies and practices (Anderson 2005b; Salmón 2000; Timbrook 2007).
Safeguarding biodiversity is a fundamental goal in ethnoecological studies, through
“memory banking,” which Nazarea describes as “the parallel collection and documentation
of Indigenous knowledge and technologies, including uses, preferences, and evaluation criteria associated with traditional varieties of crops” (Nazarea 1998: 5). Memory banking,
when pursued alongside the collection of a germplasm of staple food crops, helps ensure
agronomic integrity and the genetic diversity needed to sustain human populations. To
offset the impact of agricultural commercialization, ethnoecology seeks to identify and conserve local “heirloom” varieties of subsistence crops, such as the “five finger” sweet potato in
the Philippines or the “moon and stars” watermelon in rural Missouri. Local cultivars are
themselves representative of cultural diversity the world over (Campbell 2005; Nabhan
1989, 2002).
Another contemporary trend in ethnobotany involves the dynamics between human
populations and plant foods and medicines that have historic significance in maintaining
human nutrition and health. A growing compendium of edible medicines is being discovered
and catalogued by ethnobotanists: chili peppers, seaweed, blackberries, and mushrooms, for
example, are valued not only for their role in maintaining cultural identity as edible foods,
but also for their powerful healing virtues as flavorful medicines (Etkin et al. 2011; Johns
1996; Pieroni and Price 2006). Recent discoveries of edible medicines, sometimes called
nutraceuticals, and the health implications of traditional foodways serve to illustrate the
breadth of ethnobotany in a world comprised of increasingly transnational communities
(Etkin 2006; Pieroni and Vandebroek 2007). Work in environmental anthropology and
ethnopharmacology is presently informed by the fluidity of human movement through
time and space. Displaced populations are known to develop social networks to aid in the
procurement of plant materials needed to retain traditional medical praxis (Volpato et al.
2007). Ethnoecologists also consider traditional plant foods and medicines in their efforts
to interpret health belief systems (Quave and Pieroni 2007). Ethnoecological studies also
highlight the forces that continuously shape how information is transferred from one generation to the next (Nolan 1998; Zarger and Stepp 2004; Zent 1999).
Methods in Ethnobotany
139
Over the past decade, ethnobotanists have focused attention toward the survival of
plant-based knowledge at its source—in local communities where it is rendered especially
meaningful (Thompson 2004; Turner et al. 2008). Encouraging headway can also be seen
through grassroots organizations such as CIBA (California Indian Basketweavers’
Association), the Northwest Native American Basketweavers Association, and the
Cherokee Native Plants and Arts Society in Oklahoma. These examples of contemporary
ethnobotany in practice share a holistic and multidisciplinary approach that is increasingly
necessary for the advancement of human wellbeing on multiple levels—physical, spiritual,
nutritional, and emotional.
METHODS IN ETHNOBOTANY
Over the past 40 years, the scope of methods in ethnobotany used to assess relationships
between people and plants has broadened significantly. The first task for many ethnobotanists
is to develop a research question that can be investigated during a feasible period of time.
Questions might be general, such as, “Which wild plant foods are consumed most frequently
among the North Carolina Lumbee Indians?” Or they might be more specific, such as, “Why is
river cane (Arundinaria gigantea) a culturally important plant species, threatened in the
Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma?” Other questions extend or advance prior discoveries, for
example: “What can Native or Indigenous communities do to protect culturally significant
species from overexploitation in the Pacific Northwest?” Researchers often base their work
on hypotheses, which can be tested by using one or more lines of evidence and methods.
Choosing a research site goes with the selection of questions the ethnobotanist seeks to
answer. Students who are new to the field may begin their inquiry on a local level, which
ensures affordable access to research settings, such as Native American communities in
Canada, the United States, or Latin America, or traditional communities wherever the student may happen to live. Conducting fieldwork “locally” is valuable on two levels. First,
it inspires appreciation for cultures and ecosystem conservation in the researcher’s own
homeland. Second, it provides ample opportunity for researchers to familiarize themselves
with the toolkit of techniques they will use in future studies. Emerging ethnobotanists may
develop interest in and commitment to other peoples and places through university seminars,
field schools, and local cultural events that expose them to very different cultural and geographic settings.
Many ethnobotanical studies proceed through a technique known formally as participant observation, an approach commonly used among ethnographers who work with
Indigenous peoples. This is a methodology in which ethnobotanists adopt the lives and
daily routines of the people they wish to learn about. It entails participating in day-to-day
activities, such as household chores, collecting water and fuel, helping out in the garden,
or going fishing, hunting, or gathering and preparing food with community members.
While offering a chance to develop rapport, friendship, and goodwill with others, participant
observation yields obvious insights for ethnobotanists who seek to understand the meaning
of plants in everyday life. Valuable personal experiences with people and plants can be documented, recorded, or videotaped (only with permission, of course) as they occur in context.
Subtleties of people– plant interactions, when observed and examined in this manner, can
lead to larger discoveries about local systems of plant cultivation, harvesting, fertilization,
utilization, and management (cf. Turner et al. 2000; Deur and Turner 2005). By actually
doing what local people do, the researcher learns much that is so “obvious” that local
people would never think to mention it in interviews!
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Chapter 9 Ethnobotany: The Study of People– Plant Relationships
As a general rule, most community members, including children, know something
valuable about ambient flora, whether wild, cultivated, or semi-cultivated (Zarger 2002).
Therefore it is advisable to undertake an assessment of the full range of botanical knowledge
existing within a population. One technique for identifying “experts” is to collect enough
data to develop a consensus of intracultural agreement regarding the names of plants used
frequently among members of a cultural group. These individuals, known as key respondents, represent the culmination of generations of expertise in their home communities.
Of course it is important to remember that some individuals may have expertise in one
area of ethnobotanical knowledge, and some in another. Men and women, for example,
usually hold differing knowledge and experience in relation to ethnobotany (cf. Howard
2003). Consulting with key respondents, formally or informally, generates insights about
the total constellation of plants known among a social group. They may convey messages
about threatened species, once abundant but suddenly scarce, or the social forces deemed
responsible for changes observed in species diversity and distribution. Important local priorities about natural resource conservation often emerge through repeated conversations
with expert respondents. Other concerns regarding intellectual property rights may also
become apparent through the course of rapport building (e.g., Bannister and Hardison,
2011; Brush 1996; Gilmore and Eshbaugh, 2011).
Community elders are frequently the bearers of the largest amounts of native plant
knowledge. Other personal demographic factors are considered when respondents are
sought out for consultation. Resident healers, for instance, are sometimes available and willing to share their wisdom. In instances when the healer provides the names and applications
of therapeutic species, the ethnobotanist inquires about the respondent’s wishes regarding
the dissemination of this valuable information. Ethnobotanists are responsible for the ethical
management of all information entrusted to them. Cultural knowledge of plants is at once a
personal and collective construction of knowledge, composed of peoples’ experience with
plants and of the broader social understanding of what plants “mean” to those who use
them in any society. Modernization can lead to erosion of knowledge among members of
industrial societies and remote ethnic groups alike. New techniques for assessing ethnobotanical knowledge change have recently been identified (e.g., Zent and López-Zent 2004).
Ethnobotany is thus capable of generating historical and ecological texts of people – plant
interactions.
Ethnobotanists should, whenever possible, and with the permission of the community,
collect “voucher specimens” of the plants they document through the interview process. For
actual botanical identification and research, vouchers are necessary. Generally, collection is
conducted under the supervision of expert respondents and, if required, with the collaboration of a translator. Voucher specimens aid the researcher in the scientific identification
needed to confirm the alignment of folk names with scientific species of culturally significant taxa in a region. Most voucher specimens are recorded and catalogued for future reference, then dried, preserved, and deposited in a herbarium (see Martin 1995). It is often
desirable to make duplicate collections, so that one set can remain in the community
where the plants originated. Photographs are also helpful in this regard. Since special permits
are generally required when specimens cross national borders, ethnobotanists must consult
with customs officials accordingly before they proceed. Researchers can examine collections
using novel microscopic, chemical, or genetic techniques. Thus, as new knowledge becomes
available, the collections—together with the information recorded with them—become even
more valuable as concrete representations in ethnobotanical knowledge systems.
Photographs of local flora can be useful reference tools for determining the distribution of plant knowledge among a community (Thomas et al. 2007). Ethnobotanists have
Classic Case Studies and their Contributions to Ethnobotanical Praxis
141
also employed model building in their collective studies of human – plant interactions.
Reenactments and replicas of subsistence and food processing and other activities in archaeobotany have been fruitfully employed (Martin 1995), alongside multi-scale mapping,
assessing disturbance regimes, controlled burns, and soil development as they relate to the
agricultural sciences. Ethnobotanists borrow sophisticated tools of inquiry from quantitative
biology, for example, in assessing the economic value of plant resources harvested in various
sectors of Africa (Cunningham 2001). This entails the analysis of botanical commodities in
the broader exchange market, and their relationships to social networks to determine how
goods and benefits are distributed among community members. Such efforts become
increasingly generative and collaborative, and thus call for multidisciplinary efforts from
ecologists, conservation biologists, linguists, cartographers, statisticians, and economists,
alongside local communities.
CLASSIC CASE STUDIES AND THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS
TO ETHNOBOTANICAL PRAXIS
Intergenerational Research in Medical Ethnobotany
In 1979, ethnobotanist Daniel Moerman set out to examine the bioactivity of Native North
American plant medicines as recorded by generations of ethnographers and ethnologists.
Moerman’s quest to demystify Native medicine would become a seminal work in medical
anthropology (Moerman 1979). Moerman applied a simple regression analysis to determine
whether Native American plant medicines are distributed randomly, as the “placebo effect”
might suggest, or if they occur in potentially meaningful, statistically relevant patterns
throughout the plant world. Moerman’s effort pulled together many decades of folk pharmacology to reveal medical applications that transcend social, ethnic, and linguistic boundaries
of Native North America. His subsequent publications advanced and confirmed these findings by identifying evolutionary properties that explain why families of medicinal plants,
such as the rose (Rosaceae), bean (Fabaceae), and mint (Lamiaceae) families are prominent.
These families produce alkaloids and other compounds with bioactive properties that serve
as chemical defenses against insect predation. When prepared and administered to the patient
in accordance with culturally prescribed traditions, certain species within these families are
now known to render efficacious physiologic effects which, as Etkin (1993) asserts, are
experienced by individuals in ways that are culturally constructed. More recently, ethnobotanist John Richard Stepp joined forces with Moerman to extend earlier findings regarding
the distribution of medicinal species, many of which occur as weeds in disturbed forest
regions (Stepp and Moerman 2001). Stepp (2004) also discovered that the weeds found
within disturbed regions of ecosystems yield a higher proportion of pharmacologically
active compounds than would be expected by chance. Stepp continues to generate innovative
discoveries in medical ethnobotany through the application of Geographic Information
Systems (GIS) technology to reveal regions of the world where cultural, linguistic, and ecological diversity correlate and overlap.
Using Paleoethnobotany to Understand the Past:
Ötzi and Kwäday dän Ts’inchı́
In paleoethnobotany—the ethnobotany of past human societies—chance discoveries often
lead to amazing insights about how our ancestors lived. In 1991, a fully intact human
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Chapter 9 Ethnobotany: The Study of People– Plant Relationships
body was discovered melting from a glacier in the Tyrolean Alps, at the border of Italy and
Austria, over 3200 m elevation. Named Ötzi after the Ötztal Alps where he was found, he
died at around the age of 46 about 5200 years ago: the earliest intact human body known
to date. Some time after he was found, an arrowhead embedded in his back under the left
shoulder was detected, which had probably caused his death.
Then, in 1999, the body of a young man, probably in his late teens when he died, was
discovered by hunters at the foot of a glacier in far northwestern British Columbia, in the
upper Alsek River watershed in the Tatshenshini-Alsek Park, about 85 km from the seacoast
just inland from Yakutat, Alaska. Named Kwäday dän Ts’inchı́ (Long Ago Person Found) in
the language of the Southern Tutchone, he had died approximately 550 years ago, from
unknown causes (Beatty et al. 2000).
Who were these ancient mountain travelers? What were they doing when they died?
How far, and from where, had they traveled? These key questions, and paleoethnobotany
have played an important role in answering them, particularly through the work of James
Dickson and his colleagues (Dickson et al. 2003, 2004). Studies of artifacts and visible
plant, animal, and fungal remains, and microscopic examinations of pollen, moss fragments,
silt and minerals, and other materials within their digestive tracts and in association with the
bodies of these men have revealed important evidence, including of what they had eaten in
the hours before their deaths, and where they had probably lived their lives.
Ötzi was found to have eaten the meat of ibex and red deer, cereal, and other plant food
prior to his death. A whole array of belongings was found with him, including a number of
artifacts of different woods: an axe with a yew wood haft and copper blade; an unfinished
bow of yew wood (Taxus baccata), over 1.8 m long; arrows with shafts of the wayfaring
tree (Viburnum latana), mostly unfinished; a dagger with an ash wood (Fraxinus excelsior)
handle; and a pack frame of bent hazel wood (Corylus avellana). He was carrying sloe plums
(Prunus spinosa) and two birch-bark vessels, one to carry embers. He had wrapped pieces of
charcoal in fresh maple leaves (Acer sp.). He was carrying two kinds of fungus, Fomes
fomentariaus and Piptoporus betulinus, possibly for tinder or medicine. His clothing was
carefully fitted and stitched and included a cape with a grass weft and a warp of the bast
fibers of lime, or basswood (Tilia sp.), and goatskin shoes with bearskin soles lined with
grass. Over 80 species of bryophytes in Ötzi’s digestive tract and surroundings were identified by Dickson, and two of them, Neckera complanata and N. crispa, helped (along with
the style of axe and his flints), to pinpoint his origin from South Tyrol, rather than from
Austria. The pollen of hop-hornbeam (Ostrya carpinifolia) and hazel in his gut and other
evidence indicated that he had died in early summer (Dickson et al. 2003).
The story of Kwädāy dän Ts’ı̀nchı́ is equally compelling. His belongings were of both
coastal and interior origins: a sewn cape of interior style made from skins of Arctic ground
squirrel (Spermophilus parryi), a species common only in the interior; and a twined spruce
root hat (probably Picea sitchensis) of Tlingit style. A high proportion of the pollen in his
stomach and intestine was of Chenopodiaceae, concluded to be that of glasswort, Salicornia
depressa, a coastal marsh species whose pollen was also present on his ground squirrel cape.
Cultural associations with this species were determined through ethnobotanical consultations with elders of Champagne-Aishihik, Tagish, Gwitch’in, and Tlingit First Nations
(Mudie et al. 2005). This pollen, added to other evidence (i.e., a fruit of mountain sweetcicely Osmorhiza berteroi, and a needle of mountain hemlock, Tsuga mertensiana,
pollen of Sitka spruce, Picea sitchensis and western hemlock, Tsuga heterophylla, and
scales of four-year-old chum salmon, Oncorhynchus keta, all coastal species, on his cape;
a fragment of Sphagnum imbricatum—a coastal bryophyte species, in his gut; and a skeleton
fragment of a large crustacean from his stomach), indicate that he had been on the coast
recently previous to his travels (Dickson et al. 2004). Bone and hair isotope data indicate
Conclusion
143
that he had lived on marine food, mainly fish and marine mammals, for most of his life, but
had spent time inland for a few months before he died. These are just two of many examples
of how ethnobotany contributes to our understandings of past human lifeways.
Solving the Mystery of a Notorious Illness: Ethnobotany
and Cycad Toxicity
Sago palm (Cycas revoluta) and other cycads (Cycas spp.), sometimes called seed ferns, are
commonly grown as house and greenhouse ornamentals, as well as outdoors in warmer
areas. In some parts of the world—for example, Australia and the South Pacific—
humans have used the seeds of cycads as a food source, but only after prolonged processing,
since the raw seeds are known to be toxic. Various animals also consume cycad seeds, however. For example, flying foxes, large fruit-eating bats of the genus Pteropus, forage on the
seeds of a tree cycad, Cycas micronesica. Knowing about cycad seeds as fruit bats’ food
enabled ethnobotanist Paul Alan Cox and his colleagues (Cox et al. 2003) to determine
the cause of a deadly affliction of the Chamorro Indigenous People of the Pacific island
of Guam.
The Chamorro population has suffered from a disease called ALS-PDC (amyotrophic
lateral sclerosis/parkinsonism– dementia complex), which causes deterioration of the
muscles and nervous system with effects similar to the well known “Lou Gehrig’s
Disease,” at 50– 100 times the average incidence in other populations throughout the
world. Cox and his colleagues determined, first of all, that a major source of cycad toxicity
originates not in the plants themselves, but in cyanobacteria (formerly known as blue-green
algae). These organisms live in a symbiotic relationship in specialized coralloid roots of
cycads and produce a non-proteinogenic amino acid called beta-methylamino-L-alanine
(BMAA), which is highly toxic and particularly affects the nerves and spinal cord.
BMAA is taken up by the host cycad and is concentrated in its seeds, especially in the outermost seed layer. These researchers determined that BMAA is further bioaccumulated when
animals eat cycad seeds; flying foxes accumulate BMAA in their flesh at over twice the
levels found in the cycad fruits. Finally, the researchers noted, fruit bats have been a
prized food item of the Chamorro, who boil them in coconut cream and eat them whole.
This practice, then, was identified as the source of the high incidence of neurodegenerative
disease for the Chamorro. Cox et al. (2003) note that BMAA has also been found in the brain
tissues of Alzheimer’s patients from Canada, suggesting alternative pathways for bioaccumulation of this compound in aquatic or terrestrial ecosystems. Nevertheless, one cause of
the disease—linking toxins from cyanobacteria to people through cycads and fruit bats—
is now determined, and this is a major breakthrough in our understanding of the risks and
benefits of human food systems.
CONCLUSION
Ethnobotany started as a rather narrow and limited field of study, comprised initially of
inventories of useful plants and their corresponding uses among Native peoples. Yet there
is perdurability within people– plant relationships that has captured and maintained the
attention of people from all walks of life, from all reaches of the world. Furthermore,
what would appear as a simple and straightforward study of human – plant relationships
expands to tell the stories of humans’ place in the world and their ties to each other.
Historically, ethnobotany is a field of study defined by a merging of botany and ethnology.
Like its parental disciplines, ethnobotany has evolved significantly since its inception, and is
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Chapter 9 Ethnobotany: The Study of People– Plant Relationships
serving new purposes in the twenty-first century. Environmental degradation and resource
mismanagement, accompanied by an even more precipitous erosion of linguistic and cultural
diversity, have fueled creative and progressive goals in the minds and hearts of ethnobotanists, whose work typically involves social concerns for sensible, sustainable, mutually compatible strategies to maintain cultural diversity and biodiversity for the benefit of present and
future generations. More than ever before, collaboration and partnership are being promoted
with Indigenous and local communities, and ethnobotanists have involved themselves in the
struggle to preserve the integrity of both cultures and languages and the environments in
which they are situated.
This supportive function will undoubtedly continue and strengthen in the coming years,
as Indigenous peoples and local communities, governments, educators, non-government
organizations (NGOs) and corporations all strive to address impending environmental
degradation and cultural loss. It is a trend situated within the context of international imperatives to respect and support the rights and knowledge of Indigenous peoples worldwide.
The Convention on Biological Diversity arising from the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development in Brazil (United Nations BDC 1992), and the Declaration
on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which was adopted by the United Nations General
Assembly in September 2007, contain explicit requirements for governments of Member
Nations (including Canada and the United States) to respect the rights of Indigenous
Peoples, and to consult and collaborate with them meaningfully in all aspects of resource
use affecting their lands and territories. The Preamble to the Convention on Biological
Diversity, for example, clearly recognizes the close interrelationships between Indigenous
Peoples and their lands, and the critical importance of their environmental knowledge. It
also recognizes the often overlooked but significant role of women as resource managers
and keepers of traditional ecological knowledge.
Ethnobotanists have a major role to play at the community level, where objective
approaches are especially valuable in data collection. They can also involve themselves in
policy-making and legislation to ensure the recognition and protection of such knowledge.
They can serve communities by providing vital information on scientific plant identification
and broad-scale ecological knowledge, and by forging creative linkages to other communities with similar needs and goals of preserving and perpetuating cultural knowledge of
plants and environments. They can participate in developing school and college curricula,
audiovisual productions, science and cultural camp activities, museum exhibits, and locally
relevant plant guides (e.g., Thompson 2004), and in establishing ethnobotanical gardens
(Turner and Wilson 2006), and eco-cultural centers. They can contribute to local bioeconomic development such as sustainable harvesting of Non-Timber Forest Products
(Cunningham 2001) or ecotourism ventures supported by local cultural and ecological
knowledge. They can help to connect Indigenous and local communities with ethical
partners for researching and marketing local products, and can also facilitate relationship
building between local Indigenous peoples and other academics wishing to undertake
collaborative research. They can also serve to corroborate, substantiate, and validate
Indigenous knowledge in treaty and land rights negotiations (Turner 2004).
Harshberger’s original concept of ethnobotany has been transformed many times over
the past century, and ethnobotany in the twenty-first century promises to serve humanity
well. As long as there is a need for original, careful, systematic, collaborative documentation
of peoples’ dynamic interactions with the plant world, for bridging social and ecological systems, for maintaining and enhancing biocultural diversity, and for reconnecting health and
wellbeing with cultural and environmental integrity, ethnobotany will be a field of relevance
and importance in the world.
References
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Chapter
10
Reconstructing Past Life-Ways
with Plants I: Subsistence and
Other Daily Needs
KAREN R. ADAMS
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, Cortez, CO
SUSAN J. SMITH
Bilby Research Center, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ
INTRODUCTION
150
METHODS
151
LARGER PLANT REMAINS
151
SMALLER PLANT REMAINS
151
FLOTATION SAMPLES
152
POLLEN SAMPLES
152
COMBINING ARCHAEOBOTANICAL RECORDS
CASE STUDIES AND EXAMPLES
SUBSISTENCE IN THE PAST
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157
157
MAIZE IN STORAGE: A HUMAN TRAGEDY
158
FOODS THROUGH TIME AT SALMON PUEBLO
160
FOODS AND FARMING ON THE PAJARITO PLATEAU
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POLLEN INDICATIVE OF BEVERAGES
161
THE TALES COPROLITES TELL
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DOMESTICATION OR MANAGEMENT OF WILD PLANTS
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PLANTS REFLECTING OTHER DAILY NEEDS AND ACTIVITIES
163
FUELWOOD AND BUILDING MATERIALS IN SOUTHWESTERN COLORADO
163
A MEDICINE PRACTITIONER’S RESOURCES
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Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Chapter 10 Reconstructing Past Life-Ways with Plants I
SMOKING MATERIALS IN PIPES AND CANE CIGARETTES
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OTHER TOPICS
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DISCUSSION
165
REFERENCES
166
INTRODUCTION
Before European contact, Native Americans depended on plant resources for shelter, food,
tools, weapons, medicine, art, and religion. Even as New World Indigenous societies experienced profound changes associated with the Columbian Exchange (Mann 2005), they maintained an astounding knowledge of plants (Moerman 2003). Living elders on the Gila River
Indian Reservation in Arizona have names for 150 distinct plant species (Rea 1997: 85), not
including crop varieties, and know of at least 69 native edible plants (Rea 1997: 68). Deur
and Turner (2005: 13) estimate the Native American cultures along the Pacific Northwest
coast utilized 300 plant species. Anderson (2005: 242– 244) suggests ancient California
cuisines incorporated 1000 plant species and that these resources provided 60 –70% of
the primary staples for most tribes (see also Hammett and Lawlor 2004).
Our understanding of pre-Columbian North American subsistence is at an exciting juncture. It is only in recent decades that scientists have acknowledged the widespread and intensive management and cultivation of native plants (Adams 2004a; Anderson 2005; Blackburn
and Anderson 1993; Boyd 1999; Deur and Turner 2005; Doolittle 2000). Models segregating Pre-Columbian subsistence modes into foraging, hunting-gathering, or farming are blurring (see B. Smith 2005) with increasing recognition that plant gathering and cultivation was
often blended with hunting and foraging, creating “agroecosystems” (Deur and Turner 2005;
Doolittle 2000). For example, the Kumeyaay Indians of southern California burned extensive areas to improve deer forage and remove competing plant species prior to broadcast
seeding wild grass grains; they also transplanted and tended oak (Quercus), pine (Pinus),
palm (Washingtonia), mesquite (Prosopis), agave (Agave), yucca (Yucca), wild grapes
(Vitis), and cactus (Cactaceae) plants (Shipek 1989). In the southwestern United States,
large-seeded and leafy native annuals, weeds, and grasses may have been semi-cultivated
by 10,000 BP (Mabry 2005: 121). Maize (Zea mays) is a Mesoamerican cultigen evident
in southwestern archaeological records by at least 2260 BC (Huber and Van West 2005).
Other Mesoamerican domesticates, such as squash (Cucurbita pepo), amaranth
(Amaranthus cruentus), and common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), arrived independently
between 1200 and 590 BC (Merrill et al. 2009).
The long-term legacy from human – environment interactions is imprinted in the modern
composition of plant communities (see Pearsall and Hastorf, 2011). In the Southwest, cultivated transplants of cholla cactus (Opuntia; Housely 1974), agave (Hodgson 2001: 34– 40),
and sage (Salvia; Huisinga 1999) have been recognized in species range extensions or as isolated populations restricted to archaeological sites (see Adams 2004a: 190– 192; Doolittle
2000: 71). In the Northwest, managed species recognized outside of their native range
include camas (Camassia quamash), Garry oak (Quercus garryana), and wapato
(Sagittaria latifolia; Deur and Turner 2005). Harder to discern are local extinctions of
what may have been carefully tended subsistence plants (see Bohrer 1978).
Methods
151
Large-scale impacts such as deforestation may be preserved in the archaeological record
(Adams 2004a). Easter Island archaeology pivots on the pollen record of human deforestation (Mann et al. 2008; but see Rull et al. 2010 for alternative theories). Telescoping to a
global scale, Ruddiman (2005) presents compelling evidence that agriculture and accelerating human-caused environmental impacts linked to thousands of years of settled agricultural
life have perturbed climate to the critical threshold of delaying the next glacial epoch.
In conjunction with information from artifacts and recovery contexts, archaeologists
assemble multiple lines of evidence to suggest specific uses of plants in the past. In this chapter we discuss the methods involved in recovering large and small plant remains from archaeological contexts and present case studies and examples from the southwestern United States
to demonstrate how botanical materials contribute to reconstructing past subsistence. There
are also a number of synthetic reviews of the archaeological plant record to guide the reader
into some of the archaeobotanical literature of the southwestern United States (see Adams
and Fish 2005).
Documents written during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries provide general
perspectives on historic plant uses, which are helpful in interpreting the archaeobotanical
record (Bartlett 1951; Bell and Castetter 1941; Castetter 1935; Castetter and Bell 1942,
1951; Castetter et al. 1938; Doebley 1984; Havard, 1895, 1896; Palmer, 1870, 1878;
Standley 1912; Stevenson 1915; Whiting 1939; Yanovsky 1936). In addition, books written
by or for Native Americans provide invaluable perspectives on how they thought about and
interacted with their environment (Thompson 1991 [1916]; Watt 2004; Wilson 1987
[1917]). These ethnobotanical records offer a rich reservoir of ideas about human needs
satisfied by plants, and together the archaeological and ethnographic records often reveal
long-term continuity in food choices and other daily needs (Adams and Fish 2006;
Adams and Van West 2005). However, because plants may pass from favor among
human groups, and because uses for a particular plant can change through time, the ethnographic record is incomplete as relevant to plant use through the ages.
METHODS
Larger Plant Remains
Macrobotanical samples include those plant remains large enough to be visible and collected
during excavation. For decades, archaeologists focused on interpreting past subsistence
and other needs for plants solely on the basis of these larger plant parts. However, these
specimens tell only a portion of the story.
Smaller Plant Remains
Today smaller plant remains, among them seeds, fruits, fragments of charred wood, and
fibers, are now routinely included in analysis. Other tiny remains include pollen grains
(discussed here) and starch grains and phytoliths discussed by Pearsall and Hastorf (this
volume). These plant materials are identified and described at various microscopic magnifications, and add significantly to the understanding of how plants were integrated into the
lives of ancient groups. Some specimens are recovered by a water separation process
called “flotation”. Pollen grains, phytoliths, and starch grains require chemical extraction
procedures. Examples of how these microfossils contribute to our understanding of
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human– environmental interactions, social relationships, and root and tuber use are discussed in Pearsall and Hastorf (2011).
Flotation Samples
Years ago, archaeologists realized that if they poured sediment into a bucket of water, buoyant plant remains would float (Bohrer 1970, 1986a). The charred and uncharred specimens
that are skimmed from the surface and dried become the contents of a “flotation sample”.
Archaeobotanists have compared and contrasted the wide range of flotation techniques
reported by archaeologists (Wagner 1988: 17– 35; Watson 1976: 77– 100), but three general
principles apply to a good flotation system: (a) cross-contamination between samples
is minimized, so that the stories of plant use by an ancient group are not blurred; (b) the
process is gentle, so that old and fragile specimens are not subjected to additional stresses;
and (c) the process is relatively quick, so that plants parts do not have a chance to become
waterlogged and sink.
As early as the 1970s, many large archaeological projects employed flotation to
expand understandings of ancient plant use. Archaeobotanists at the Salmon Ruin in New
Mexico published a book on their techniques and approaches (Bohrer and Adams 1977),
as did archaeologists associated with other projects (Adams 2004b; Murray et al. 2008;
plus others). Publications often include detailed criteria of plant part identification
(Adams and Murray 2004a, b; Murray et al. 2008) and summarize information that provides
links to historic uses of plants identified from archaeological sites (Rainey and Adams 2004;
Adams et al. 2008). A comparison of some of the differences between charred plant remains
from within structures versus those from middens is presented in Table 10.1. Some examples
of archaeological plant remains are depicted in Fig. 10.1.
Pollen Samples
Pearsall and Hastorf (2011) discuss the paleoecological applications of pollen analysis. Here
we introduce concepts and issues relevant to archaeopalynology (see also Bohrer 1981;
Bryant and Hall 1993; Hevly 1981; Pearsall 2000). Sediment excavated from archaeological
contexts is the most common type of sample analyzed, based on the assumption that pollen
reflecting cultural plant use is preserved within site soils. Rinses from artifacts are another
class of sample; however, artifact washes are not recommended except in extremely well
protected contexts or unique situations due to the high risk of contamination (Geib and
Smith 2008).
At less than 0.2 mm long, pollen grains come in a variety of three-dimensional shapes,
displaying smooth, sculptured, folded, or etched surfaces, apertures ranging from simple
holes or slits to complex systems of windows and furrows, and exterior elements like
warts, spines and, in the case of the pines, twin bladders filled with air for flying in the
wind (Fig. 10.2).
Archaeological pollen assemblages present interpretive challenges. One frustrating
conundrum is that the presence of a pollen taxon may not reflect a local plant, whereas
absence may mean a local plant was missed. This puzzle is, in part, related to plant pollination ecology. Anemophilious or wind-pollinated taxa, such as conifer trees, grasses, and
sagebrush (Artemisia), are over-represented in fossil assemblages because they produce
abundant aerodynamic pollen, which can travel up to hundreds of kilometers. In contrast,
the entomophilous or insect-pollinated plants, such as cacti, most herbs, and some shrubs,
produce small amounts of poorly dispersed pollen. After pollen grains fall to the ground
Methods
153
Table 10.1 Two Common Archaeological Contexts Where Seeds, Wood, and Other Small Plant
Remains are Often Preserved
Context
Structure
floors and
other
contexts
inside
dwellings
Middens,
other trash
deposits
Typical plant remains
found
Plant source areas
Time involved
Natural—being tracked in on
sandals or fur of dogs; seeds/
fruit carried in on twigs and
branches sought for
firewood; plant parts raining
in on dwellings after they
have been abandoned
Cultural—deliberate gathering
and use of plant materials,
such as when cooking foods,
making products for daily
use (e.g., baskets, sleeping
pads); suspending items from
roof rafters as storage,
including seeds for future
planting, etc.
Natural—weedy plants that
prefer disturbed habitats
would occupy trash dumps
and shed seeds and other
parts into them, even as trash
is being added
Cultural— ashes cleaned from
hearths and other thermal
features and discarded into
trash dumps contain
evidence of fuels, foods, and
other common plant uses
Duration of
occupation might
be short or long;
the record of plant
use is likely
depicting the
activities within
the dwelling or
family compound
Evidence of fuels used for
cooking fires and to keep
warm; foods prepared
indoors; foods in storage
for the future; discarded
leftover materials from
making everyday objects,
including clothing;
collapsed building
timbers
Middens may
receive the debris
from multiple
families over
multiple years; a
generalized view
of plant uses at a
location over time
is presented
The average daily choices
people make for wood as
fuel and for tools, seeds
and fruit as foods, and
other parts (leaves, stems,
etc.) for a range of other
daily needs
and become entrapped in sediment, complex biological and physical processes control their
taphonomy and preservation (Berglund 1986; Dimbleby 1985; Fægri and Iversen 1989; Hall
1991; Moore et al. 1991). In addition to all the complex natural processes affecting pollen
recovery, there are also methodological issues (see Pearsall 2000) dealing with sample collection (Bryant and Hall 1993; Cully 1979; Reinhard et al. 1992), laboratory techniques
(Dean 1998; Smith 1998; Woolsey 1978), and interpretation (Bohrer 1981, 2007; Hevly
1981; Smith 2007: 532– 534).
Most plant products utilized for subsistence, such as fruits, nuts, berries, seeds, roots
and tubers, and leaves, are removed in space and time from their plant’s pollen-producing
flowers. Studies have shown that the amount of pollen retained by raw foodstuffs varies
significantly (Bohrer 1972: 26; Geib and Smith 2008). Adams (1988) and Geib and
Smith (2008) have shown that there is a component of “other” types of pollen from local
plant communities that are attached to harvested food products and vegetal materials.
The best criteria for inferring ethnobotanical resources from archaeological contexts are
when specific pollen taxa are more abundant than would be expected from natural pollen
rain, and when pollen occurrence or abundance is patterned by context. Another interpretive
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Chapter 10 Reconstructing Past Life-Ways with Plants I
Figure 10.1
Some charred examples of archaeological non-wood specimens (a– d) and wood types (e– h). (a)
Cheno-am seeds, representing goosefoot (Chenopodium) and/or pigweed (Amaranthus) seeds; (b) Agave (Agave)
u-shaped fibro-vascular bundles with CaO (calcium oxalate) crystals; (c) domesticated little barley (Hordeum
pusillum) grains (caryopses); (d) saltbush (Atriplex) fruit with bracts; (e) saltbush (Atriplex) wood; (f) mesquite
(Prosopis) wood; (g) walnut (Juglans) wood; (h) oak (Quercus) wood. All photos at 20 magnification, except for
the little barley grains (12).
Methods
155
Figure 10.2 Examples of wind-pollinated (a) and insect-pollinated (b) pollen grains and common
archaeological taxa.
tool is the consideration of pollen aggregates, which are clumps of the same pollen type
(Bohrer 1981; Gish 1991: 238). Large and numerous aggregates in archaeological contexts
are interpreted as evidence of human manipulation of plants, and their presence carries seasonal implications. A theoretical model for archaeological pollen taphonomy is presented in
Table 10.2.
Even small numbers of pollen samples generate multivariate data sets that require
numerical transformations to organize and comprehend patterning. Most archaeological
pollen studies have relied on percentages to transform data. Percentages normalize sample
pollen counts to 100 and each taxon is represented as a proportion of the total sum. One
drawback is that the percentage of each pollen type is related to the numbers of other
taxa. Pollen concentration is a different statistical tool; it estimates the absolute number of
pollen grains per unit of sample sediment by weight or volume. This method allows each
pollen type to be examined independently. Figure 10.3 demonstrates the differences between
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Chapter 10 Reconstructing Past Life-Ways with Plants I
Table 10.2 Theoretical Model of Pollen Taphonomy in Archaeological Sites
Context
Feature floors:
includes
structures,
thermal and
non-thermal
pits
Fill
Modern surface
sediment
Typical pollen spectra
and characteristics
Pollen source areas
Time involved
Natural—from
atmospheric pollen rain
and insects and wildlife
entering feature (dead and
alive)
Cultural—deliberate
import of plant materials
adds pollen from the
harvested plant plus
hitchhiking pollen from
plants surrounding the
harvested resource. This
extraneous component
comes in on crop
materials, as well as
people, tools, and
firewood. Interior pollen
rain from roof thatch
materials is another
cultural source area
Natural—primary source is
sheetwash from runoff
funneled into depressions
of houses, pits, and other
structures. Aeolian
deposition also occurs
and may rework
sediments
Cultural—wallfall,
rooffall, post-occupation
use of feature depressions
as middens, and reworked
trash material from site
footprint
Natural—there is an issue
of no modern analog
comparable to prehistoric
natural landscapes;
modern woodlands and
forests are unnaturally
dense with less
understory due to historic
fire suppression and overgrazing
Duration of occupation
Spiky values but tend
towards lower pollen
concentrations; ChenoAm and other weedy
taxa usually dominant;
highest expression of
subsistence pollen
types
No data. Relatively
rapid, less than 50 (?)
years; depositional
events may be rapid,
but are episodic
Low to high pollen
concentrations; ChenoAm and other weedy
taxa usually dominant
No data. Estimate 10
to 100 (?) years;
relatively consistent
accumulation rates
In woodlands and
forests, high pollen
concentrations, high
percentages of conifer
pollen, low percentages
of weedy taxa and
degraded pollen
Case Studies and Examples
157
Figure 10.3 Pollen concentrations compared to percentages. Reproduced by permission of Bilby Research
Center, Northern Arizona University. Victor Leshyk, artist.
percentages and concentrations (see also Birks and Gordon 1985: 11– 16; Dean 1993;
Reinhard 1993). The real power of pollen concentrations is as an index to compare plant
abundance within and between sites.
Combining Archaeobotanical Records
The best archaeobotanical records are those that are supported by a range of plant sample
types, since different records blend and complement each other to produce a better and
more complete understanding of the role(s) that plants played in the lives of past groups.
When flotation and pollen or other microbiological samples are collected from the same features within a site, chances increase for finding something indicative of activities associated
with those features.
CASE STUDIES AND EXAMPLES
Subsistence in the Past
The relative reliance on animals and wild plants, in comparison to domesticated foods, is
often an important arena of archaeological study. Subsistence mode influenced whether
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Chapter 10 Reconstructing Past Life-Ways with Plants I
ancient groups were sedentary, mobile, or some combination of the two, and impacted many
aspects of daily life. To understand subsistence, archaeologists focus on food production,
preparation, consumption, and storage. Plant evidence, animal evidence, and contexts of
recovery of these remains are all important components, which must be integrated for the
most complete subsistence interpretations.
Although the archaeological plant record reveals much about past foods, it may be
skewed. Many plant parts have preserved because they became charred during food preparation. Once burned, these fragments are no longer of interest to degrading organisms
and are likely to preserve. In contrast, any plant resource not routinely prepared by fire
might have fewer chances to preserve. Fruits eaten raw are in this category. Likelihood of
preservation also varies notably among different plants and their parts. Hard and sturdy
plant parts, such as nutshells or seeds, have a better chance of surviving than fragile
leaves or fleshy roots and tubers. Foods that have waste products that serve a secondary
purpose, such as when maize cobs provide a fuel or tinder source, increase the chances
of leaving evidence that possibly inflates their perceived importance.
Because many archaeological sites are exposed to the elements, it is reasonable to
assume that their plant records are incomplete. This is well illustrated by the AD 520
Quemado Alegre site in New Mexico, where a catastrophically burned pithouse preserved
an extensive array of basketry, ceramic, and gourd vessels with domesticated and wild
food contents intact (Toll and McBride 1996). This assemblage offered a realistic assessment of the quantities of foods that a family might have in storage at a given moment. It
also contrasted sharply with most regional archaeological plant records where poor
preservation conditions left little evidence of agricultural and wild plant resources.
Maize in Storage: a Human Tragedy
Along the Santa Cruz River in Arizona, the Duval Mine Site was a Hohokam farmstead
between AD 1000 –1150 (Adams, forthcoming). It appears that local farmers grew maize
on nearby floodplain and bajada fields, and at times harvested enough to store in underground storage pits outside their dwellings. One bell-shaped storage pit preserved intact a
complete assemblage of charred contents (Fig. 10.4).
The storage pit measured 1.9 m in diameter at its base and 1.5 m in depth. This
feature contained a charred assemblage that included: a thick layer of narrow grass stems
at the pit bottom; maize kernels that filled the pit completely; ceramic scoops for removing
kernels; a top protective covering woven from beargrass (Nolina) stems; and a layer of
dirt to seal the pit.
Excavators calculated that the pit contained approximately 950 liters of Chapalote
type popcorn kernels, which had been removed from the cob and stored for future use.
This landrace of maize is still grown today by Indigenous groups, and has a long history
in the American Southwest (Adams 1994). Following pit sealing, spontaneous combustion
apparently destroyed the pit contents, either because the kernels had not been sufficiently
dried prior to storage, or because floodwaters percolated down from the ground surface.
Evidence for spontaneous combustion includes the near absence of kernel distortion,
suggesting that kernels charred slowly, rather than rapidly. Spontaneous combustion
occurs when moisture fosters bacterial or fungal growth, and increased respiration produces
heat, which accumulates and cannot escape (Bala 1997; Nash 1985).
This unique pit allowed calculation of the amount of food in storage when the maize
kernels combusted. An estimate of kernels/liter suggested that approximately 4 million
kernels had been placed into storage. Modern Chapalote maize ears average 273 kernels/ear,
Case Studies and Examples
159
Figure 10.4
Duval Mine storage pit. (a) Pit with archaeologist Robert Neily inside; (b) a portion of the
burned maize (Zea mays) kernels recovered from the pit; (c) charred grass (Poaceae) stems lined the pit bottom;
(d) a charred grass stem in cross section; (e) mat woven of beargrass (Nolina) stems covered the pit opening;
(f ) small teeth on the edge of beargrass stems; (g) charred maize kernel; (h) section of maize kernel showing dense
endosperm typical of popcorn.
so the Duval Mine kernels represent approximately 14,652 ears of maize. A study of
Indigenous maize varieties (Adams et al. 2006) reported that maize landraces similar to
Chapalote average 70.1 g of kernels per ear, suggesting the Duval Mine storage pit contained
513.6 kg of stored maize. Ethnographic estimates suggest that 160 kg of maize kernels were
160
Chapter 10 Reconstructing Past Life-Ways with Plants I
desired per person per year (Van West 1990). Thus, the Duval Mine bell-shaped pit contained maize to feed approximately 3.2 people, or the equivalent of a single small family
for a year. Considering the maize cache was completely lost, this event was presumably
devastating for the family that owned the pit.
Foods Through Time at Salmon Pueblo
The subsistence record of people occupying Salmon Pueblo is well supported by plant parts
preserved in hundreds of flotation samples (Adams 2006, 2008). Salmon Pueblo was built
along the San Juan River in northern New Mexico, beginning around AD 1090, by a
group with ties to Chaco Canyon. This group occupied the pueblo for several decades
until a regional drought made life difficult (Van West and Dean 2000). By the early AD
1200s, another group took up residence, remodeling the pueblo and using different pottery
types, until they left the pueblo in the late AD 1200s. Excavations produced a substantial
database of plant materials collected using standardized methods and techniques (Bohrer
and Adams 1977). A range of published resources (noted in Adams 2008 contribute to
this case study, which compares and contrasts the subsistence choices of the two groups
that lived in the same place, but with their occupations separated by a 50-year gap.
Domesticated plants were of major importance in the diets of both the early Chacoan
and later Salmon Pueblo occupants (Adams 2008). Throughout the pueblo’s history, farmers
grew maize, beans (Phaseolus), and squash (Cucurbita). Maize parts included cobs, ears,
husks, kernels, stalks and tassels. However, the evidence suggests the early Chacoan occupants focused more heavily on maize than the later occupants (Table 10.3). The presence of
Table 10.3 Some Evidence of Subsistence Differences Between Two Different Occupations
of Salmon Pueblo
Early (Chacoan)
occupation
Later occupation
Maize presence
within trash strata
77% (in 10 of 13 trash
strata)
57% (in 13 of 23 trash
strata)
Number of wild
foods
Most commonly
recovered wild
foods
19 wild plants utilized (in
14 trash strata)
ChenopodiumAmaranthus on 6 (of 6)
floors and in 13 (of 13)
trash strata; Portulaca on
6 (of 6) floors, and in 9
(of 13) trash strata
16.12 (in 8 trash strata)
28 wild plants utilized (in
17 trash strata)
ChenopodiumAmaranthus on 22 (of 22)
floors and in 22 (of 23)
trash strata; Portulaca on
17 (of 22) floors and in 18
(of 23) trash strata
3.59 (in 11 trash strata)
Ratio of
domesticated
squash seeds to
wild juniper seeds
Evidence of
starvation
resources in
human coprolites
Juniper bark, yucca leaves,
maize cob fragments
References
Bohrer and
Doebley 2006;
Doebley and
Bohrer 1983
Doebley 1976,
2006
Adams 2006
Lentz 1979
Bohrer and
Adams 2006
Case Studies and Examples
161
maize in 77% of flotation samples from Chacoan trash layers contrasts with its presence in
57% of trash deposits from the later occupation. In addition, the plant record indicated that
the later occupants gathered a wider variety of wild plants, particularly weedy annuals of
agricultural fields such as goosefoot (Chenopodium), pigweed (Amaranthus), and purslane
(Portulaca). The later occupants also ate what might be considered starvation resources, such
as juniper (Juniperus) bark, yucca (Yucca) leaves, and maize cobs. These data suggest that,
despite living in exactly the same place, later occupants relied less on agricultural crops and
more on wild plants, and had a difficult time getting enough to eat.
Foods and Farming on the Pajarito Plateau
Los Alamos National Laboratory Land Conveyance and Transfer (LC&T) project was an
ambitious investigation of 38 sites on the Pajarito Plateau in New Mexico (see Vierra and
Schmidt 2008). Including supporting studies and peripheral projects, 595 pollen samples
were collected, processed, and analyzed by the same personnel ensuring consistent field
and laboratory methods. Samples were taken primarily from pueblo room blocks and field
houses dating to the Coalition (AD 1150 – 1325) through Classic periods (AD 1325–
1600). Archaeobotanical data from pollen and flotation samples show that maize, squash,
cholla, tobacco (Nicotiana), and cotton (Gossypium) were cultivated in addition to possible
management of weedy plants such as purslane (Portulaca), goosefoot (Chenopodium),
pigweed (Amaranthus) and grasses.
The Los Alamos pollen data illustrate how pollen concentration data can be used to
explore subsistence research themes. Average measures of pollen concentration clearly
differentiate more intensely occupied room blocks from field houses (Table 10.4). Smith
(2007) interpreted the results to show that Puebloan room block sites with evidence of
extensive remodeling and ground disturbance produced mixed pollen records, but that
limited seasonal use of 21 field houses produced a particularly coherent chronological history of agricultural intensification by the Classic period (Fig. 10.5). Increased areas under
cultivation at Classic period field houses is interpreted from the higher pollen concentrations
of field weeds, such as Cheno-Am and beeweed, and maize pollen, compared to earlier
Coalition period sites.
Pollen Indicative of Beverages
Archaeological evidence of beverages is usually inferred from the types of vessels recovered
at sites. A recent surprising case is evidence for the ceremonial use of cacao (Theobroma
Table 10.4 Comparison of Pollen Concentrations from Floor Samples: Field Houses Compared
to Room Block Rooms from the LC&T Project, Los Alamos
Number of sites
Number of houses or rooms
Number of floor samples
Average floor area, m2 (field house or room)
Average pollen concentration, grains/g
Average pollen taxa richness
From Smith (2007).
Field
houses
Room blocks
front rooms
Room blocks
back rooms
19
21
46
3.9
1917
10.8
3
9
30
10.3
5423
11.8
3
10
27
5.0
4324
11.7
162
Chapter 10 Reconstructing Past Life-Ways with Plants I
Figure 10.5
Pollen spectra from Los Alamos Rendija Canyon Coalition to classic field houses.
cacao) or chocolate at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, AD 1000 – 1125 (Crown and Hurst
2009), revealed by analysis of powdered fragments from the interior of black-on-white
painted pottery cylinder jars using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC),
coupled with spectral analysis.
Pollen has been used successfully to examine brewing techniques and recipes in alcoholic beverages. Rösch (2005) presents two studies: the first from organic material on a
bronze ladle from a female burial (late Hallstatt/early La Tène) in Niedererlbach, Germany;
and the second from residues from wine amphorae collected from early Medieval (fourth to
early seventh centuries) hermitages and a church along the Nile River, middle Egypt. The
pollen assemblages indicated the bronze ladle was used with mead and the Egyptian
amphorae for wine, but high frequencies of mustard (Brassicaceae) pollen in the amphorae
samples suggested that honey was added to increase the alcohol content or to make a sweet
wine. Rösch (2005) also determined that the Egyptian honey was from “yield honeys”
Case Studies and Examples
163
characteristic of deliberate bee keeping, but the diversity of pollen taxa from the bronze ladle
indicated mead made with wild honey.
The Tales Coprolites Tell
Excrement fossils from human feces or coprolites are a biological goldmine for investigating
ancient diets and are preserved only in specific situations, such as dry caves and arid environments. Microscopic and macroscopic materials extracted and interpreted from coprolites
include hair, feathers, bone, shell, scales from both fish and reptiles, insects, phytoliths,
starch grains, pollen, seeds, and leaves (Bryant and Dean 2006; Reinhard and Bryant 1992).
Pollen from coprolites has been interpreted to reflect direct consumption of flowers or
pollen from plants such as cacti, maize, squash, yucca, mesquite, cattail, and beeweed
(Bryant 1974; Martin and Sharrock 1964; Reinhard et al. 1986; Sobolik 1988; WilliamsDean 1986). Wild seeds and domesticated crops reveal the variable and relatively healthy
diets of ancient folks (Minnis 1989; Stiger 1977, 1979; Sutton and Reinhard 1995;
Williams-Dean 1978). Intestinal parasites and pathogens preserved in coprolites also provide
a perspective on the health of ancient people (Reinhard and Bryant 2008).
Coprolites have preserved some of the oldest human DNA from the western United
States (14,200 years old; Gilbert et al. 2008). In addition, DNA within coprolites identifies
both plant and animal components in human diets (Bryant and Dean 2006). Near Cortez,
Colorado, evidence of cannibalism has been interpreted from coprolites dating to ca. AD
1150 (Billman et al. 2000; but see critique by Dongoske et al. 2000; Reinhard and Bryant
2008: 213– 214).
Domestication or Management of Wild Plants
Although it once seemed that Mesoamerican domesticates were the main crop plants grown
by ancient farmers, stories of domestication or management of wild plants are now emerging. Based on plant remains and other types of archaeological evidence, it is apparent
that pre-Hispanic groups in the Sonoran Desert planted fields of agave (Agave) plants
(Adams and Adams 1998), Little Barley grass (Hordeum pusillum; Adams 1987), and
likely a number of other native plants (Bohrer 1991).
Plants Reflecting Other Daily Needs and Activities
Although subsistence is the most important reason people gather plants, plants also provide a
wide range of resources for everyday needs. Some examples are discussed below. Other
important reasons ancient people gathered plants are referenced in Table 10.5.
Fuelwood and Building Materials in Southwestern Colorado
Trees and shrubs offer human groups both fuels and building materials. The longer a group
lives on a landscape, the more likely they might diminish preferred woods through frequent
gathering. Two studies in southwestern Colorado reveal differences in impacts on local forests within a small region. Researchers at the Dolores Archaeological Project evaluated
impacts on piñon (Pinus edulis)/juniper (Juniperus osteosperma) woodlands during the
Ancestral Pueblo I (AD 720– 910) period (Kohler and Matthews 1988). Focusing on hearths
and other thermal features, archaeologists noted a reduction in piñon and juniper wood
164
Chapter 10 Reconstructing Past Life-Ways with Plants I
Table 10.5 Examples of Other Important Kinds of Information Available from Archaeological
Plant Remains
Products
Everyday items
Sandals
Sandals
Pottery paint
Cordage
Basket
Basketry elements
Ceremonial needs
Blessings
Containers and ritual items
(the magician’s grave)
Ritual artifacts (Chaco
Canyon)
Split twig figurines
Hallucinogen
Hallucinogen (and
possibly medicinal)
Funerary offerings
Offerings at shrines
Plant part(s)
Yucca leaves
10,000-year-old sagebrush bark
sandals from Fort Rock, Oregon
Beeweed (Cleome serrulata) plants
Juniper bark
Possible rose family (Rosaceae)
Fruit of devil’s claw (Proboscidea)
managed (historic period)
Maize pollen
Wooden cups, wands, and other burial
goods
A wide range of carved and painted
wooden items
Willow
Datura
Four o’clock (Mirabilis) roots
Maize pollen
Cotton caches
References
Hovezak and Geib 2002
Bedwell and Cressman 1971
Adams et al. 2002a
Hovezak and Geib 2002
Geib and Jolie 2008
Nabhan et al. 1981
Bohrer 2006
McGregor 1943
Vivian et al. 1978
Hovezak and Geib 2002
Huckell and Vanpool 2006
Bohrer 2007
Smith 2007: 568
Anonymous 1964; Huckell
1993
remains, and an increase in wood from shrubs and plants of disturbed habitats. They concluded that the Pueblo I occupants altered their immediate environment by burning and
clearing vegetation, and by intensively harvesting wood for both fuel and construction
elements such as roofing timbers and roof/wall supports. Archaeobotanists working a
short distance away came to a different conclusion when examining charred wood fragments
from later Pueblo III period sites spanning the AD 1180 – 1290 period (Adams and Bowyer
2002). In that area, fuel wood diversity appeared relatively stable through the late twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, with no major shifts in the top-ranking woods (piñon and juniper)
through time or between pueblos. In addition, the presence of smaller parts such as bark
scales, twigs, leaves, and needles suggested living trees remained within walking distance,
despite an increasing human population. An examination of construction timbers revealed
that Puebloans re-used intact roof beams and also cut new beams from the piñon/juniper
forest. These two studies from one small region, each reaching a different conclusion, indicate the variability that exists in archaeological plant records, and caution against broad
generalizations based on single projects.
A Medicine Practitioner’s Resources
In a study of two AD 1700s medicine baskets found in a dry shelter in the Gallisteo Basin,
New Mexico, Toll and McBride (1996) documented 14 root types that included osha
(Ligusticum porteri), iris (cf. Iris missouriensis), dock (Rumex), and possibly datura
Discussion
165
(Datura) and gayfeather (Liatris punctata). Other materials in the baskets were stems and
leaves of grasses and silvery scurfpea (Psoralea argophylla), a maize husk container, ties
made from maize leaves and yucca strips, and bark pieces of corkbark fir (Abies lasiocarpa
var. arizonica), ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), and Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). These assemblages preserve a perspective on a traditional medicinal plant tool kit
that is practically invisible in the archaeological record, since root resources rapidly degrade
and pollen is not expected from roots and tubers. Other examples of likely medicinal uses of
plants in ancient times include a pollen grain of datura (Datura) preserved within Arroyo
Hondo (Bohrer 1986b: 204), and medicinal use of Mormon tea (Ephedra) and possibly mesquite by occupants of an Archaic-age cave in western Texas (Sobolik and Gerick 1992).
Smoking Materials in Pipes and Cane Cigarettes
Minute samples of dottle (charred residue from smoking) from two clay pipe fragments produced odd pollen assemblages (Smith 2006: 220). The pipe was found in the fill above a kiva
at a Coalition Period (AD 1150– 1325) room block near Los Alamos, New Mexico. Both
samples were tiny, weighing less than 2.0 g, yet pollen concentrations were extremely
high at 47,591 and 28,527 grains/g, and between 30% and 40% of the recovered pollen
was maize and probable tobacco. Flowering maize tassels or a wad of maize pollen may
have been added to tobacco and smoked, a rare glimpse into a ceremonial practice.
In the AD 1325 – 1400 period, groups occupying Red Bow Cliff Dwelling, Arizona,
fashioned cigarettes from reedgrass (Phragmites australis) stems to smoke a native tobacco
(Nicotiana attenuata; Adams 1990). Distinctive anatomical and morphological details of the
large grass and wild tobacco stems supported identification of both the cigarette and its contents. Many pre-Hispanic groups in the southwestern U.S. smoked tobacco (Adams and Toll
1989). The historic record of tobacco use and management among native southwestern U.S.
communities (Winter 2000) suggests that smoking was often associated with ritual activities.
Other Topics
Pollen and larger plant remains have been used to study many topics diverse from daily subsistence and other needs. These include prehistoric agricultural fields (Fish 1984, 1994,
2004; Gish 1993a; Smith 2009), canals and other water control features (see Adams et al.
2002b), and reservoirs (Bayman et al. 1997). These also include historic latrines (Gish
1993b; S. Smith 2005 Smith and samples from construction mortar (Adams 2004c;
O’Rourke 1983; Reinhard et al. 1986; Smith 2004).
DISCUSSION
The archaeological plant record sheds light on a wide range of topics. Whether plant parts are
large enough to be collected during excavation or tiny enough to require specialized extraction techniques, independently and together they provide a window into ancient subsistence
and the many reasons people have gathered plants through time.
Archaeobotany straddles the worlds of archaeology and botany, and training in both disciplines is important. As a botanist, familiarity with plant anatomy, morphology, and ecology can be valuable for identifying ancient plant parts with confidence, and then interpreting
their significance. As an archaeologist, understanding archaeological methods/techniques,
and the circumstances of each individual site, informs the process of interpreting the plant
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Chapter 10 Reconstructing Past Life-Ways with Plants I
record. The aim is to understand past human behavior, but there are circumstances that can
blur the record of plant usage, among them: preparation methods that either foster or retard
the likelihood of a plant entering the archaeological record; differential preservation of individual plant parts; differential preservation conditions at different archaeological sites; the
natural rain of pollen grains and other plant parts into households, communities, and archaeological sites; and differences in site sampling and sample processing. These issues apply to
both the larger and smaller archaeological plant remains discussed in this chapter.
The accumulating archaeobotanical record suggests that two critical ethnobiological
principles have continued to operate through time: biodiversity and sustainability. Ancient
hunter-gatherers sought a wide range of plants and animals for food and daily needs.
Agriculturalists often continued to gather diverse wild plants, even as they concentrated
on domesticated crops. When a farming group shifted to heavy reliance on crop plants, problems may have developed. However, it is clear that many landscapes have hosted human
groups for millennia, at least intermittently, and sometimes continuously. The archaeological plant record plays a major role in understanding how this was possible.
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Chapter
11
Reconstructing Past Life-Ways with
Plants II: Human–Environment
and Human– Human Interactions
DEBORAH M. PEARSALL
University of Missouri, Columbia, MO
CHRISTINE A. HASTORF
University of California, Berkeley, CA
INTRODUCTION
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METHODS
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MACROREMAINS
174
POLLEN
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PHYTOLITHS
176
STARCH
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HUMAN–ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS
177
HUMAN–HUMAN INTERRELATIONSHIPS
180
POLITICAL –SPIRITUAL –SOCIAL EVIDENCE FROM PLANTS
180
IDENTITY
181
DISCUSSION
183
REFERENCES
184
INTRODUCTION
As demonstrated in the Adams and Smith chapter, paleoethnobotany, the study of human –
plant interrelationships through the archaeological record, provides direct evidence on how
past populations met subsistence and other daily needs. In this chapter, we look at how
paleoethnobotany contributes to understanding human interactions with their environments,
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
173
174
Chapter 11 Past Life-Ways with Plants II
and with each other. While we will provide separate discussions of these topics, the connections between the environmental and social worlds of past human societies were many
and complex.
Humans interacted with their environments in a variety of ways that left traces in the
archaeological and geological records. Wild foods were managed by fire (Abrams and
Nowacki 2008) as well as fields cleared for cultivation (Zong et al. 2007). Landscapes
were altered to increase or enable crop production by the creation of terraces (Horrocks
and Rechtman 2009) and raised fields (Erickson 2006). Trees were planted to mark, use,
and alter local microenvironments but also due to specific values (Gasser and
Kwiatkowski 1991; Goldstein 2007; Johannessen and Hastorf 1996). Humans crafted landscapes, paths, settlements, water catchment features, irrigation works, and extracted fuels
(Miller 1989). Plants were domesticated, transported across the landscape, and transformed
from foreign foods into core staples. Both maize across South America and wheat, barley,
and lentils into Europe illustrate the range of selective interests in foods and their processing
that encouraged some and depleted other plants (Dietler 2007; Oeggl 2009; Piperno and
Pearsall 1998). Farming had a profound impact on weeds, ruderal and segetal, and camp
followers, with wild seeds indirectly indicating crop production and intensification (Jones
1984, 1987; Jones and Halstead 1995; van der Veen 2008). Cultural identities were created
by land use (Hastorf 1994; Hastorf and Johannessen 1993); drink (Dietler 1990); food
(Franklin 2001; Gifford-Gonzalez and Ueno Sunseri 2007; Jones, 2007; Twiss 2007); and
feasts and politics (Dietler 1996, Dietler and Hayden 2001; LeCount 2001; Lev-Tov and
McGeough 2007). Many studies now demonstrate the rich window that plants provide us
into the past lives of people.
METHODS
Macroremains
For more details on the recovery and study of charred, waterlogged, mineralized, or dried
remains of seeds, fruits, nuts, and roots/tubers, and their applications to understanding subsistence and other daily needs, see Adams and Smith (2011). Here we focus on the potential
of macroremains when applied to cultural and environmental issues.
Macroremains provide information on environments in which past populations lived,
since they are a subset of what was available locally to be gathered, accidently introduced,
or grown. But plant remains recovered from sites also represent cultural selections.
Culturally selected species are not a cross-section of all available species, and so are particularly appropriate for providing insights into what plants were useful and valued than for
environmental reconstruction per se. Adriano-Morán and McClung de Tapia (2008), for
example, used charred wood from excavations in the Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico, to evaluate
whether changes occurred in the intensity of use of different species through time. Continuity
was revealed, suggesting forest management. Charred wood may also provide a high resolution record of woodland vegetation contemporaneous with site occupation, as demonstrated
by Asouti (2003), who argued from the charcoal record of a Neolithic site in south-central
Anatolia that terebinth/almond woodland steppe was present by the early Holocene.
Wollstonecroft et al. (2008) provide an example of new levels of analysis to get at
past behavior. Experimenting with a commonly gathered Paleolithic plant, these processing
experiments support how pounding, boiling, and baking were all applied to enhance and
expand diet. Building on Wandsnider (1997) and Stahl (1989), this project emphasized tuberous, subterranean storage tissues and their likely participation in diet. From
Methods
175
experimentation and images we learn much about “invisible” food plants, which survive
surprisingly well. Weiss et al. (2008) illustrated the power of macroremains in
reconstructing activity areas in a sealed floor of an Upper Paleolithic hut at Ohalo II,
Israel. Using continuous density plots of major taxa recovered on the floors, non-random
plant distributions were recognized which, in conjunction with features and artifact
distributions, suggested gender-related use of space, including processing foods and
medicinal plants.
Pollen
Reconstructing past vegetation and climate and detecting human impacts on past environments are goals of stratigraphic palynology (Faegri et al. 1989; Moore et al. 1991;
Pearsall 2000; for archaeological applications see Adams and Smith, 2011). Permanently
waterlogged sediments (swamps, lake bottoms, ocean floors) in which biological decomposition of pollen is inhibited are preferred sampling locations. Plants that are pollinated by
wind contribute large quantities of pollen across the landscape, including water surfaces.
Pollen sinks and becomes incorporated into bottom sediments, which over time accumulate
and preserve a record of past vegetation. Not a perfect record: species are commonly over- or
underrepresented depending on differential pollen production, dispersal, and destruction.
Sampling contemporary pollen rain and studying pollen in surface soils from known vegetation types are two approaches used to determine pollen representation and to aid interpretation. Waterlogged sediments are sampled for pollen through coring: inserting a side-filling
or bottom-filling tube into the sediments, closing the chamber, and extracting it intact. The
corer is inserted multiple times into the same hole to retrieve a complete record. Once laid out
in stratigraphic order and opened (by extruding the sediments or cutting open the tubes), core
sediments are described and samples removed for dating (wood, highly organic sediments),
chemistry, and chemical extraction of pollen (and phytoliths, see below). Microscopic charcoal and spores are also recovered and counted in pollen extracts and can tell us much about
regional fire regimes.
Stratigraphic pollen data are presented in a pollen diagram, a standardized graph that
depicts the proportion or absolute count of each type in each sampled stratum. The conventional order for listing identifications is arboreal taxa, shrubs, herbs, and spores, but taxa may
be ordered by ecological groups or include categories such as disturbance or cultivated plants
as an aid to interpretation. Because it is difficult to interpret a long stratigraphic record with
many types, sequences are divided into smaller units, or pollen biozones, places in the
sequence in which the analyst sees several concurrent changes in frequencies or absolute
counts of types (e.g., a decrease in primary forest taxa and an increase in taxa favoring
open habitats). Numerical approaches are often used to delineate pollen zones (Birks and
Gordon 1985). Pollen and spore assemblages—the taxa present and their abundances—
along with absolute pollen concentration and patterning in microscopic charcoal concentration are key to establishing pollen biozones and interpreting changes in terms of past
regional vegetation and human impact.
Human interactions with their environments are often “captured” in stratigraphic pollen
and phytolith records, which provide landscape-level views to complement archaeological
site-level data. Piperno and Jones (2003), for example, identified significant burning
around Lake Monte Oscuro in Pacific coastal Panama which, in association with increases
of weedy plants, indicated that slash-and-burn cultivation was being practiced, while
Atahan et al. (2008) identified localized environmental impacts (deforestation) of early
agriculture in the lower Yangtze delta, China.
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Phytoliths
Phytoliths, microscopic plant opal silica bodies, are produced in stems, leaves, roots, and
inflorescences of plants. Silica that forms phytoliths is carried up from groundwater as monosilicic acid, and deposited in epidermal and other cells of growing plants. In many taxa, distinctively shaped bodies are formed which, after being released back into soils or sediments
through plant decay or burning, can be recovered to provide insight into past vegetation or
plant use (Madella and Zurro 2007; Pearsall 2000; Piperno 2006b). Decades of research have
shown a strong genetic component to phytolith formation: families and orders of plants show
strong tendencies to silicify or not silicify their tissues; production of many phytoliths is consistent within the same taxon under different environmental conditions. While silicification
patterns are redundant in some groups, many taxa produce morphologically distinctive phytoliths that are diagnostic at the genus or species level, or even plant tissue (e.g., Calathea
and Maranta root phytoliths; Chandler-Ezell et al. 2006). Size is sometimes used to separate
phytoliths produced by closely related taxa (e.g., separating wild and domesticated rice
glume cells; Zhao et al. 1998), or a plant may be identified by its phytolith assemblage
(Hart and Matson 2009; Lu et al. 2009).
Phytoliths are inorganic and survive in contexts in which organic remains may not be
well preserved, for example in sediments subject to repeated wetting and drying (macroremains only preserve if charred, and are subject to breakage; pollen and starch are subject
to decay). Highly alkaline conditions (approaching 9 and above) may lead to phytolith dissolution. Once deposited by organic decay, burning, or in the course of digestion (i.e., in gut
contents or coprolites), phytoliths move little in stable soils. In fact a challenge of phytolith
processing is breaking the chemical bonds between phytoliths and soil constituents (Zhao
and Pearsall 1998). Phytoliths move if the soil or sediment in which they are deposited
moves; fluvial action deposits phytoliths in lakes or swamps (Piperno 1991, 1995), and phytoliths are transported in wind-blown dust (Fredlund and Tieszen 1994; Twiss et al. 1969).
Pearsall (2000) and Piperno (2006b) discuss recovering phytoliths from sediments, soils,
and artifacts.
Phytolith analysis contributes to our understanding of past human– plant interrelationships. Reconstructing past vegetation and detecting human impacts on past environments are
investigated through stratigraphic phytolith analysis, which is similar in approach and objectives to stratigraphic palynology. Sampling cores for both pollen and phytoliths increases the
numbers of taxa identified. Phytoliths recovered from archaeological contexts contribute in
ways similar to macroremains, for example, in identifying food plants and determining their
relative importance (through ubiquity) or distribution in a site (Pearsall et al. 2004). Plants
that rarely come in contact with fire (e.g., medicinals, raw fruit, or plants used in floor mats
and roof thatch) or produce macroremains that are fragile (e.g., roots and tubers) may be
identified by phytoliths (Chandler-Ezell et al. 2006). Separating anthropogenic and natural
phytolith “signals” can be challenging in site contexts; one approach is comparing assemblages from sites to natural deposits or macroremain assemblages (Pearsall 2004).
Starch
Ancient Starch Research, edited by Robin Torrence and Huw Barton (2006), provides an
overview of the growing applications of starch analysis. Scholars were slow to realize
that starch is common and well preserved on artifacts (Loy et al. 1992; Piperno and
Holst 1998), including cooking vessels (Zarrillo et al. 2008) and grinders/pounders
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(Chandler-Ezell et al. 2006; Pearsall et al. 2004), in sediments (Horrocks et al. 2004;
Horrocks and Rechtman 2009), and in dental calculus (Henry and Piperno 2008; Piperno
and Dillehay 2008). Foods with starchy subterranean storage organs (roots, rhizomes,
corms, tubers) that have scant macroremains or are not phytolith producers may be identifiable by starch. Calculus and artifact studies provide evidence that past diets were often
broader than have been envisioned from other indicators (Piperno 2009). While much
starch research has focused on domesticated plants, many wild plants produce diagnostic
starch and hold potential for identifying foods and medicines of hunter-gatherers (Zarrillo
and Kooyman 2006).
Starch serves as a plant energy reserve (Bott et al. 2006). Some is transitory—formed
during the daylight hours and converted back to sugar at night. Other starch is designed
for long-term energy storage. Storage starch is what humans target for food. It tends to be
concentrated in seeds and underground storage organs, but may also be found in stems,
like palm pith, in tree sapwood, and in fruits such as plantains and chilies.
Starch forms in amyloplasts, beginning at a point called the hilum, and grows by successive layers (lamellae), which may remain visible on the granule (Bott et al. 2006).
Starch is semicrystalline and exhibits strong birefringence, that is, under polarized light it
appears white against the black background, and an extinction cross, a dark cross centered
on the hilum, is visible (but may disappear in damaged or heated starch; Henry et al. 2009;
Valamoti et al. 2008). Storage starch morphology is largely under genetic control, and many
plants can be identified by their starch. Among the characteristics used for identification are
granule shape and size, hilum location, extinction cross characteristics, fissure presence and
shape, surface and edge characteristics, and whether granules are simple or compound (Bott
et al. 2006). Starch granules are often characterized using a few distinctive traits, but it is
sometimes necessary to apply multivariate analysis (Torrence et al. 2004). Starch swells
in water, a change that is reversible at low temperatures. When heat is applied with water,
a point is reached—gelatinization—at which irreversible changes in starch occur, eventually
producing amorphous masses (Bott et al. 2006). Torrence (2006) and Fullagar (2006)
discuss how to recover starch from sediments and artifacts.
HUMAN– ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS
One exciting area is the study of how people created productive agricultural lands that sustained populations for many generations, in some cases at densities as great as or greater than
today’s. An important aspect of this research is documenting ancient cultivation practices at
a variety of scales. For example, Horrocks et al. (2004) studied sediments from stone mounds
from a site in northern New Zealand. Starch of sweet potato was recovered, suggesting that
one large mound was used for the cultivation of this introduced species. Microclimatic
advantages included better heat retention and reduced frost damage to this warm climate
species. Insights into Polynesian cultivation practices of an exotic plant were gained.
Denham and Haberle (2008) combined multiple lines of evidence at different scales from
the Upper Wahgi valley, Papua New Guinea, to develop a chronology of plant exploitation
practices (wetland cultivation, dryland cultivation, patch disturbance, foraging) and an
understanding of how different practices were overlaid in the landscape at different times.
Key data included starch and phytoliths recovered from tools and cultivation surfaces, leading to identification of yam, taro, and bananas, and contributing to understanding local wetland manipulation and cultivation. Paleoenvironmental records revealed anthropogenic
disturbance on a landscape scale. This New Guinea example demonstrates the multilayered
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character of plant exploitation and early agriculture, rather than a binary opposition of agriculture and foraging. As argued in Denham and Barton (2006), agriculture emerged
from pre-existing foraging strategies, and continuities in practices such as patch creation
and plant translocation existed. Microfossil data facilitated these insights by opening up
more contexts for data recovery.
Dryland farming systems in the Hawaiian Islands have been the subject of recent study
by several researchers. Kirch et al. (2005) investigated a dryland farming area in the
Kahikinui district, southeast Maui. The survey revealed that most pre-contact habitation,
agricultural, and ritual sites were located in what would have been the most productive
zone for sweet potato and dry taro. By combining archaeological, paleoethnobotanical,
and geochemical data, they demonstrated that this landscape was farmed using a combination of practices. Agricultural features produced by digging stick cultivation (poking
holes for planting) and also by soil turning/mounding (opening up the earth) were
identified. Digging stick cultivation created conditions suitable for taro—mixed ash and
cinder to create a productive loam soil and plant access to underlying water—while soil
turning/mounding provided the better drainage needed by sweet potato. The fill within
the features showed a significant loss of plant nutrients in comparison to soils outside.
Wood charcoal absence indicated a lack of regular burning of woody taxa, as would have
been expected under an extensive long-fallow system (i.e., allowing resting fields to return
to forest); instead, an abundance of agricultural weed seeds and phytoliths produced by
grasses and herbs indicated more intensive short-fallow (i.e., a shorter resting period, in
which vegetation reverts to grasses, herbs, and shrubs). In combination, these lines of
evidence showed intensive and repeated use of a particular substrate for dryland farming.
Horrocks and Rechtman (2009) conducted a microfossil study of features in the Kona
Field system on the island of Hawai’i, a dryland cultivation area characterized by stone field
walls, mounds, terraces, enclosures, and stone-lined trails. Features were sampled for pollen,
starch, and phytoliths. Banana phytoliths were found in most samples, sweet potato starch
and xylem in all features, but no other typical Polynesian cultivars. These results support
a model of crop-specific resource zones, as identified in ethnohistorical records. Higher
concentrations of starch and xylem in older samples suggested that cultivation was more
intensive earlier in the sequence (Horrocks and Rechtman 2009).
As reviewed by Kirch (2007), coring in wetlands on O’ahu and Kaua’i, islands on which
large tracts of irrigated pondfields exist, documented that human activities, including use
of fire, had a significant effect on lowland vegetation soon after the islands were occupied
(ca. AD 800). Pollen records showed how forest composition changed, with lowland forests
largely replaced by managed agroecosystems by AD 1200. By contrast, higher regions
retained forests into historic times, demonstrating that traditional cultivation practices
were not focused on that zone. Archaeologically recovered charcoal also provided insights
into vegetation change. Charcoal recovered from a rockshelter on Moloka’i Island documented the transformation of a diverse dryland forest into a landscape dominated by shrubs and
herbs, representing short-fallow cultivation. The late prehistoric dryland and pondfield cultivation systems of the Hawaiian Islands represented intensive land management systems
that were efficiently managed and potentially sustainable, if not equally benefiting all members of this incipient state (Kirch 2007).
Agricultural origins is one of those “big” questions that is revisited by each generation
of researchers. A significant recent development is the expansion of the kinds of data that can
be brought to bear; there are fewer methodological limitations on our ability to recover
paleoenvironmental and archaeobotanical data needed to test hypotheses concerning the
how and why of food production (Piperno 2006a). There is also increased emphasis on
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thinking of the transition to agriculture as not only humans interacting with individual
species, but interacting with suites of resources or whole landscapes. Examples from the
American tropics illustrate these trends.
Piperno (2006a) and Kennett et al. (2006), among others, frame agricultural origins
in terms of human behavioral ecology foraging theory: looking at suites of resources
(fruits, seeds, underground storage organs of plants; animal species of different sizes and
habits) in terms of caloric rates of return. Kennett et al. (2006) argue, for instance, that
the establishment of maize-based food production on the Pacific coast of southern Mexico
was a long, gradual process because cultivating maize provided a relatively low rate of
return compared to other resources. Piperno (2006a) reasons broadly that dramatic declines
in foraging return rates of glacial-period resources occurred in the early Holocene as forest
expanded into formerly open habitats, leading to use of lower ranked resources, including
ancestors of domesticated plants. Paleoenvironmental data provide a window into the
timing and trajectory of these landscape-level transformations (Piperno and Pearsall 1998).
Erickson (2006) characterizes the profound prehistoric transformations of the low-lying
Llanos de Mojos of the Bolivian Amazon (building of raised fields, causeways, reservoirs,
forest islands, fish weirs, settlement mounds) as the creation of domesticated landscapes,
managed environments that made marginal lands productive and increased biodiversity.
Arguing from an historical ecology perspective, he proposes that Amazonian populations
actively determined the nature of their environments, rather than adapted to existing conditions, and that agriculture was “simply a logical, intentional, historically contingent outcome of long-term intensive occupation, use, transformation, creation, and domestication
of the Neotropics by humans” (Erickson 2006: 239). Studying such constructions across
a region demonstrates how the results of landscape domestication/creation can be profound
and long-lasting: the pre-Hispanic transformation of the Llanos de Mojos resulted in permanent alterations in topography, hydrology, and biodiversity, which continue to be present
and to be, on occasion, operative today.
Anthropogenic forest disturbance is ancient in the Americas, as is using fire as a management tool (Piperno and Pearsall 1998). Research in the Maya region (southern
Mesoamerica) illustrates the “entwined relationship” (Ford and Emery 2008: 150) of contemporary and ancient populations and the forest, a relationship that has endured for millennia through constant adaptation by the Maya to local and regional environmental and
political circumstances. For example, the majority of the dominant plants of contemporary
Maya forests, including native species, are important as foods, medicines, for construction,
and other uses, suggesting long-standing forest management for useful species and garden
escapes (Campbell et al. 2006; Ford 2008). Because the majority of these taxa are not wind
pollinated, Ford (2008) purports that they are underrepresented in regional paleoenvironmental records, which show increasing proportions of pollen of open indicators (herbs,
grasses) over time, interpreted as deforestation. Study of contemporary forest gardens
suggests that elevated levels of herbs and grasses signal past human management of a
mosaic of fields, regenerating fallows, and managed forests, which contributed to the resiliency of the forest by providing for species encouragement (Ford 2008).
As examples from the Pacific discussed earlier illustrate, understanding the nature
of human interactions with the environment is facilitated by multiple lines of evidence at
different scales of analysis. In the case of paleoenvironmental studies, incorporating
pollen, phytolith, and particulate charcoal data gives a more nuanced view of vegetation
than relying on single indicators. For example, palynologically underrepresented plants
may be phytolith producers; patterning within the particulate charcoal signal may serve as
a proxy for the intensity/frequency of burning. Further, regional-scale data provided by
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environmental cores may provide the earliest glimmers of human impacts on/alternations of
landscapes. Neff et al. (2006), for example, were able to examine the impact of archaeologically “invisible” Archaic period populations on the landscape of Pacific coastal Guatemala
through a regional coring program. Evidence from three locations documented humans on
the landscape earlier than the dates of known sites, in the Sipacate region at around 3500
cal BC. Maize, squash, Maranta (arrowroot genus), and other useful plants were identified
in the context of low disturbance indicators and relatively low charcoal concentrations.
Shortly after 3500 cal BC, arboreal indicators, especially pollen but also phytoliths, sharply
declined and charcoal concentrations rose dramatically, and remained elevated but fluctuating until around 2600 cal BC, suggesting multiple episodes of anthropogenic burning. Trees
did not disappear, however, and among the taxa present were economically useful plants and
those favoring secondary growth.
We have only a coarse-grained perspective on cropping and other management practices
that produced vegetation patterning such as that described for Pacific coastal Guatemala.
Cultivation began before forest clearance, likely on naturally open lands such as river alluvium; fire was used to create and maintain more arable land from dry tropical forest; forests
were resilient. To understand more would require the study of plant microfossil and particulate charcoal assemblages from forest, fallow, and field plots of known composition and management practices to develop analogues for interpreting ancient proxy data (Pearsall 2007).
HUMAN– HUMAN INTERRELATIONSHIPS
Political –Spiritual – Social Evidence from Plants
In arid regions fuel remains an issue, as foraging peoples can quickly denude trees and large
shrubs of their dead wood. Cooking fuel becomes grass and small shrubs within weeks of
residence, prompting people to move on before food sources are exhausted. A famous
example is Chaco Canyon in the American Southwest, where spruce and fir wood from
the mountains 75 miles away was brought in to build large ceremonial structures
(Betancourt et al. 1986), and fuel was imported. Lentz and colleagues (2005) uncovered
how pine wood was so valuable that its archaeobotanical distribution reflects the difference
in access or price in the neighboring Maya communities of Xunantunich, San Lorenzo, and
Chan Nòohol. Studying samples from a range of domestic areas on the Late and Terminal
Classic settlements, the authors tracked the density and presence of pine wood. Pine
grows in hillside forests some 17 km distance from the settlement, thus we know that this
wood was transported into the community. There is good support for wood being converted
to charcoal before use as cooking fuel. Pine also was used in house construction and in
rituals, its resin producing incense. The authors ranked the households into commoners
and elites, based on house-mound size, labor required for their construction, non-local ornaments, and tools, suggesting ties with ruling families. Identified wood shows that the largest
settlement, Xunantunich, received the most pine in both primary (house construction) and
secondary (rubbish mounds) contexts. Farmers in the smaller hamlets (Chan Nòohol) had
the least amount of pine within their homes. Based on this patterned pine distribution
within and between the settlement’s households, the authors conclude that pine wood was
distributed in a selective, socially informed manner, perhaps as gifts between leaders and
other residents. Even if that was not the case, different communities and families clearly
had differing access to pine, which was shipped downriver into this region. For many symbolic reasons this commodity was selectively accessible.
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While Lentz and colleagues did not discuss individual choice and decision-making
explicitly, this conclusion was active in the non-random pine wood distribution. Such
non-normal distribution is a red flag that sets paleoethnobotanists off on the search for
non-ecological reasons for plant distributions. Such an approach was initiated by Tipping
(1994) when he worked with pollen frequencies in Bronze Age Scottish graves. Tipping
found a higher than expected presence of lime pollen (Tilia), which is common in honey
and mead, in burial cists. Meadowsweet (Filipendula) was also unusually present,
suggesting its addition as a flavoring to the drink or simply as a sweet-smelling bouquet
(Tipping 1994: 137 – 138). Given that some concentrations were associated with ceramic
vessels that appeared tipped over, Tipping suggests that ceremonial foods, drinks, and flowers were offered to the dead at the time of burial. While he does not take these plant-offering
interpretations further, each of these plants will have had meaningful value for the inhabitants of southern Scotland.
An innovative study at Petzkes Cave, New South Wales, found that distributions of
both starch and charcoal recovered from sediments were a good reflection of the spatial
pattern of past use of a small living space (Balme and Beck 2002). By studying the densities
of these remains, not the taxa themselves, they identify spatially discrete activity areas,
where plants were stored, processed, and cooked, allowing us to begin to discuss the
levels of fluidity or constriction of the occupants. Additionally, through this detailed analysis, we learn that these plant remains were more likely to remain in situ than the deposited
stone artifacts, which were affected by trampling. Dense patches of sediment starch were
interpreted as plant processing areas.
Identity
People eat what is local, what they can find through their own collecting or production,
but also they eat what they desire, what tastes good. Traditional preferences begin in childhood with an inborn desire for sweet and salty, fatty and juicy, but for each group or family
lived culinary traditions develop that reflect individual choices through generational practices being passed from one cook to another. These recipes, even if they are simply ways
of cutting up a plant or the intensity of fire under a pot, speak to the values and opinions
of the cooks and their consumers. In this way, cultural groups are maintained, not through
discursive discussions about identity, but through daily practices of plant storage, processing, cooking, and eating. Thus paleoethnobotanists must augment their patchy data by
studying the multiple patterns of plants, cooking vessels, grinding stones, as well as other
foodstuffs, scattered around habitation areas. This is culinary archaeology.
In discussing the politics of cuisine, Dietler (2007) clarifies a concept that will help
paleoethnobotanists as they trace and understand the uptake of plants in diets over time.
He describes the indigenization of dishes, foods, and plants as they were traded out of
their home territory. Clearly people can be curious about new things to eat, and that
means new plants to grow, store, and prepare. But this was not blind acceptance. Adoptions
were channeled through operative taste values and acceptable preparation methods in
addition to the possibility of local production. As Fuller (2005), Hastorf (1999, 2006),
and Lyons and D’Andrea (2003) have pointed out, plants and meals have selective and
distinct uptake paths. The literature displays several of these cultural and technological
histories. Sometimes a new food item is similar to those grown locally and used in local
cuisine, making it easy to add or substitute within an ongoing tradition. Some foodstuffs
are unique to the local cuisine and broaden it. Another successful introduction path
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occurs when production and processing technologies within the group’s arsenal allow the
new crop to fit into the food cycle, whether it is less or more expensive to procure.
Another cultural concept that channels plant uptake is the associated sensory meanings
that arrive with a new food item: flavor, texture, color, and taste. Associated symbolic meanings can accelerate consumption of certain foods, as people actively seek out ingredients, as
well as develop successful propagation of these crops (Hastorf 1999). Some plants become
core foods of a region, like grapes in France or rice in Japan, or remain occasional foods, like
saffron in England. These various pathways, and the specifics of a plant’s production, processing, and recipes help to illustrate how such dishes become part of traditional foods and
core cuisines of specific communities. A powerful example of the rise of an indigenized
plant is the tomato’s place in Italian cuisine. Tomato is a Central/South American crop,
brought to Europe in the 1500s. Then it was considered poison or worse, linked to the
apple and the original sin in the Biblical Garden of Eden. Yet, by the 1900s everyone associated the red juicy tomato with Italian meals, the flavor and color becoming the core of
“traditional” motherly Italian cooking (Allen 2002). The “Irish” potato had a very different
history of acceptance onto that island yet it also became a core food for the laboring, rural
masses, accomplished through landlords’ pressure to force indentured farmers to convert
from grain production to tuber production (Messer 1997). Yet by the time of the great
famine in the 1840s, many thought the potato so thoroughly Irish, it was considered
native to that island. These classic examples of the indigenization process of plants and
dishes chart the cultural decisions and values of the community under study. This process
illustrates how the foreign, exotic plant becomes so important in the new culinary setting
that it becomes central in the traditional cuisine. Such invented traditions lurk in all societies,
as people create cohesion while effecting change (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992). However,
these processes are not without their histories and can illuminate the specific values and
meanings of the people.
These examples display the multiple actions of cultural choice and selection. An
example of resistant adoption in cooking is seen in the movement of wheat and bread
making into Africa from the Near East. Lyons and D’Andrea (2003) trace ingredient acceptance tempos in Ethiopia and link these to the foreign food processing technology. Different
from the new planting regimes required for Irish farmers, these authors focus on the impediment of the processing differences between local, traditional griddle baking for teff versus
oven bread making for wheat. As well we see the impact of gender on food practices, as
bread making remained in the female domain. It was they who literally had to learn to
build and operate ovens. This additional temporal hurdle in a busy day slowed the conversion to leavened bread baking in highland Ethiopia.
Consumption plays an important role in reaffirming cultural identity. Fuller (2005) discusses the agency of cultural identity in the divergent food uptake trajectories and indigenization of millet and mung beans across India. He traces the selective activities that
accompanied the different plants as they spread across the continent via their processing
and cooking activities and how these have adjusted with the crop introductions.
Technology impacts the tempos of these plant immigrations and their reception in the
local cuisines. The movement and cultural meanings of the plants are linked to how they
were produced and cooked. Further, one can ask what recipes had to be altered or invented
to incorporate these new foods and what were the cultural settings that allowed this to
happen? Fuller links production with consumption. He suggests that ceramic production
and its use in food processing circumscribes modes of adoption as well as the meanings
that had accompanied this addition, tying crops to their recipes. Building four models of
adoption of foreign foods based on linguistic types of adoption, Fuller provides material
correlates in both the plants and the ceramics.
Discussion
183
One plant movement model is operating in the African and northern Indian crop
introduction southwards. In these situations, with no new ceramics associated with the
processing, this trajectory reflects an easy adoption, where the introduced plants could
be processed like extant plants. In a second model Fuller traces the introduction and acceptance of wheat and barley into the southern Deccan region of the Indian subcontinent during
the Neolithic. These crops arrive as a complex, accompanied by new ceramic vessels,
perhaps for the brewing of beer and a new processing technology. While these two regions
are similar environmentally, Fuller suggests that their two populations adopted this suite
of food crops differentially, displaying their active cultural decisions in the spread of
food crops. Fuller’s study explores local values and concerns through the adoption of
non-local foods and plants that fit into the cultural and political world, not unconsciously
or uniformly but uniquely; each plant was thoughtfully taken up into the agricultural
cycle for its own merit, becoming reformed within the local world view as a “traditional”
crop of value.
Studying tubers, Kubiak-Martens (1999, 2002) and Hardy (2007) focus on the mostly
invisible starchy food staples of the northern European Mesolithic diet. By studying both
tuber taxonomy and starch grains these scholars allow us to move beyond the large literature
that emphasizes the Mesolithic focus on seafood and meat and realize that these foragers also
ate many vegetables. Kubiak-Martens (1999, 2002) studied several submerged Ertebølle
sites at which a range of foodstuffs has been found, suggesting they ate rhizomes from
the local marsh and nuts from the nearby forests and meadows. They flavored their meals
with onions, and ate grains, seeds, berries, fruit, nuts, and a range of underground storage
roots-rhizomes like bull rush, club-rush, beets, and pignuts, all roasted in pit ovens, a
strongly vegetable diet (Kubiak-Martens 1999). This evidence provides a more robust
view of daily practices as well as a much broader diet than previously portrayed. Both
authors gained traction from ethnoarchaeological work in North America and Australia
respectively, allowing skeptics of starch analysis to see its value in food studies.
Other work that has given archaeologists new, more robust reinterpretations of past lifeways is the Amazonian research of Perry (2004, 2005), in which she demonstrated that
objects oft labeled “manioc graters” actually were used for maize and other crop processing.
Starch analysis allows us to refocus our imagination as well as our scientific knowledge—
in this case of women’s daily work in food preparation. Chandler-Ezell et al. (2006)
also used starch analysis to learn about the diversity of utensil use in early domesticated
processing. In a study of stone tools at the Real Alto site, they have found manioc
(Manihot esculenta), arrowroot (Maranta arundinacea), llerén (Calathea sp.), and maize,
in both unaltered, damaged, and gelatinized starch, informing us of potential recipes as
well as the flexibility of tool use. Likewise, in the recent study of Middle Stone Age tools
from Sibudu Cave in South Africa, Williamson (2004) has clear evidence of plant remains
on tools previously assumed to have been used for animal hunting and butchering. Such
studies are forcing the archaeological vision of the past to broaden and include more
often the large role of plant food in the daily activities and diet of the past.
DISCUSSION
Paleoethnobotany is expanding not only the archaeological database, but also its potential
to address a range of anthropological and environmental issues. Because we can now
encounter plant evidence that was not obtainable earlier, through starch and phytoliths,
residue analysis, and more detailed macroremain collection, we can address many more
questions than was previously possible.
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Studying how people created productive agricultural lands is one exciting area of
research in which substantive advances are being made. But research such as that being carried out New Guinea, Hawaii, and the lowland Neotropics also illustrates the complexity of
identifying the processes by which people created and maintained agricultural systems.
All avenues are being followed: methods, analysis (Madella 2007), and interpretation,
from in-depth detailed work, as at Çatal Höyük with micromorphological analysis in association with phytolith analysis (Matthews et al. 1997); or studying the full range of influences
on Ötzi’s life and region (Jacomet 2009). But more work still can be done on social aspects.
Why did some neighbors eat more rhizomes while others focused on grains within the same
time frame? These questions become answerable when we build on the biological, ecological, and economic data but seek out questions of taste, value, and historical choice. Cuisine
plays a large role in creating social and individual identity today, and surely did so in the past.
Part of the power of paleoethnobotany comes from applying multiple datasets to the
same general question. Oeggl (2009) provides the striking example of the Ice Man’s life
and activities. The rich texture of his life takes ever more shape through his plant use and
movement across his taskscape (Ingold 1993). As with every material in the archaeological
record, taphonomic concerns are important in the analysis; processing sequences and
chaines operatoires loom large. More than just Schifferian taphonomic natural and cultural
sequences, however, we need to focus on hard-won contextual identifications. Miksicek’s
(1987) discussion of the four major types of deposition helps us towards this fundamental
starting point of our research between the trowel and the published interpretation. Each
stage must be discursively discussed and revisited, like Wright’s (2005) flotation article.
Van der Veen (2007) revisits the issue of interpretation and deposition, suggesting that
because we basically study daily practices, our data, however patchy, is more robust than
usually assumed. Again, interpretation is further strengthened with multiple datasets.
Therefore we close this brief discussion by reminding the reader of the wonderfully rich
plant use that existed in the past where everything was carried in a basket, and most
meals were plant based.
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VAN
Chapter
12
History and Current Trends of
Ethnobiological Research in Europe
INGVAR SVANBERG
Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
ŁUKASZ ŁUCZAJ
Department of Ecotoxicology, University of Rzeszów, Werynia, Kolbuszowa, Poland
MANUEL PARDO-DE-SANTAYANA
Department of Botany, University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
ANDREA PIERONI
University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo/Bra, Italy
HISTORY OF A DISCIPLINE
191
THE RECORDING MAN
191
NATURAL HISTORY DURING THE RENAISSANCE
192
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: THE BEGINNING OF ECONOMIC BOTANY
193
MEDICINAL PLANTS AND ECONOMIC BOTANY
194
NINETEENTH CENTURY: EXPLORERS AND ARMCHAIR SCHOLARS
195
EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY: ETHNOGRAPHICAL STUDIES
197
POPULAR MEDICINE
200
FOLKLORE AND PLANT NAME RESEARCH
201
BOTANISTS ON PLANT USE
202
ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN HUMAN AND NONHUMAN ANIMALS
204
TOWARDS A SCIENCE OF ETHNOBIOLOGY IN EUROPE SINCE 1980
204
CURRENT TRENDS
205
REFERENCES
208
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
189
190
Chapter 12 History of Ethnobiological Research in Europe
We who belong to today’s post-industrial society can sometimes have difficulty in imagining
how close to the surrounding landscape rural people lived in pre-industrial Europe only a
few generations ago. Trapping, transhumance livestock keeping, gathering of fodder and
haymaking as well as hand-crafting utensils for the household meant that forest settings
and mountain areas were not wildernesses, but multi-faceted production landscapes, which
locals from childhood learned to interpret, use and transform. They knew their forest or
mountains well.
Inhabitants of local, traditional societies, whether in the case of livestock herdsmen
in mountainous areas of southeastern Europe in the early twentieth century, or contemporary
slash-and-burn agriculturalists of the Amazon rainforest, devoted a lifetime to learning to
master the local environments on which they were dependent for their livelihood. Claude
Lévi-Strauss has revealed that local populations typically have an excellent familiarity
with the biological environment, and they show a passionate attention to it (Lévi-Strauss
1962).
This understanding of what Lévi-Strauss calls “science of the concrete” includes not
only those organisms and contexts which reflect cultural, economic, and medicinal needs,
but also deep and detailed knowledge of the environment in general. Therefore, mountain
herdsmen in the Balkan Peninsula, farm workers in Calabria, fishermen in Atlantic islands,
rural cultivators in Central Europe, villagers in the vast marshlands of the Great Hungarian
Plain, forest-cutters in the northern Iberian Peninsula, peasant hunters in central Scandinavia, or reindeer nomads in the Sápmi are at least as interesting to study in terms of their
folkbiological knowledge as the Kayapó, Naulu, Ntlakyapamuk, or Piman.
Ethnobiologists in Europe work to get rid of the widely held notion that ethnobiology
is all about “non-Western people.” European rural people are part of our professional realm.
Figure 12.1 Albanian women from Kelmendi in the northern Albanian Alps smelling spignel (Meum athamanticum), which is locally used as a cosmetic plant. Photograph courtesy of Andrea Pieroni. (See color insert.)
History of a Discipline
191
As ethnobiologists we usually study rural people’s ecological knowledge in societies with
high levels of self-sufficiency. We study the biocultural domains that develop in the interactions between human beings and their surrounding landscape, including perceptions of
the biota, local management, and use of biological resources (Pardo-de-Santayana et al.
2010).
HISTORY OF A DISCIPLINE
Overviews of the development of the sciences of ethnobotany and ethnobiology usually
stress North American contributions to the subject. Ancient Greek and Roman writers
are sometimes mentioned, but seldom do we read about important eighteenth to early
twentieth century scholars in other parts of the world. The history of an academic discipline
is a highly subjective matter; for ethnobiology it is very much so (Clément 1998; Ford 1978;
Hunn 2007).
This bias in the historiography of our discipline is to a large extent a question of understanding languages other than English. Little information is to be found in international overviews. Only C.M. Cotton (1996) provides a brief overview of the European contribution
to the development of ethnobotany and ethnopharmacology.
Although the terms “ethnobotany,” “ethnozoology,” “ethnobiology,” and “ethnoecology” were not coined until 1895, 1899, 1935, and 1954 respectively, the history of the ethnobiological field began in Europe long before then. Even though this type of research did not
develop early into a separate academic discipline, over the centuries many European scholars
within botany, ecology, ethnology, human geography, pharmacology, and zoology, as well
as advanced amateurs, have made important contributions to the field of ethnobiology.
The Recording Man
In every ancient culture with a written language, people have recorded useful knowledge
about animals, plants, and environments. This is particularly true of medicinal discoveries
and knowledge. Some of these texts have been preserved. We have Assyrian, Egyptian,
and Greek medicinal books which bear witness to extensive knowledge about how animal
and plant products could be utilized (cf. Raven 2000).
Greek and Roman authors reported, for instance, on the importance of the acorn
(Quercus) for bread, the use of medicinal plants such as herba vettonica (Stachys officinalis),
or the ingestion of yew (Taxus baccata) as a poison in the Mediterranean by old people no
longer able to fight. The physician Pedanius Dioscorides (AD 40– 90) wrote P1rí v́lh6
iatrikh
6 “On medical material”—better known in its Latin translation De materia
medica—which remained important until today. Dioscorides described in detail more
than 600 medicinal plants and also included medicines made from animals and minerals.
He also recorded ancient local plant names from various tribes.
His contemporary Pliny de Elder’s (AD 23– 79) encyclopedic Naturalis historia
“Natural history” is another important written source for our knowledge about animals
and plants among the Romans. Pliny provides a wealth of interesting information, such as
that hedgehog skin was used in dressing cloth for garments, ravens were taught to imitate
human voices, and dolphins assisted fishermen in catching fish.
192
Chapter 12 History of Ethnobiological Research in Europe
Natural History during the Renaissance
In medieval herbals of the thirteenth century, the ancient tradition of medicinal plants lived
on with some additions of newer data. In Andalusia, Arab scientist Ibn Al-Baytar (ca. 1180 –
1248) compiled a book of food and medicinal plants, based on his own observations and
more than 200 sources (including Dioscorides), presenting uses for 1400 simples.
With the invention and diffusion of Gutenberg’s printing press in the late fifteenth
century it became possible to publish herbals in larger editions, for instance Leonhart
Fuchs’ herbal Neu Kreüterbuch (1543) which catalogues more than 400 plants native to
Germany and Austria, as well as about 100 exotic plants. The German language version
is nicely illustrated with woodcut prints. The book has been used widely in handbooks
throughout plant cultural history as a source for knowledge about medicinal plants in former times. Other herbals, for example, by Henrick Smid (1546), William Turner (1551),
Remberd Dodoens (1554), Andrés Laguna (1555), Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1568), Juhász
Melius (1578), Marcin z Urze˛dowa (1595), John Gerard (1597), and Simon Syrennius
(1613), were also widely read. We know little about the ethnographic background and field
methods adopted at that time (many just copied data from others), and so it is probably not
accurate to use the term “ethnobiology” to refer to all the herbals and overviews on plant uses
in Europe, which were carried out centuries before the proper development of ethnography
in the nineteenth century.
The Swiss zoologist Conrad Gessner’s (1516– 1565) books on birds and fish are of
importance for our understanding of faunal change in Europe, but they also include many
notes regarding the uses of various taxa (Kinzelbach 2004). Peter Claussøn Friis’ (1545–
1614) description of northern Norway published in 1632 describes Nordic conceptions of
animal life at the end of the 1500s. A manuscript by Jón Guðmundsson the Learned
(1574– 1658) provides folk knowledge details about whales and fish in Iceland.
Figure 12.2
Olaus Magnus describes in 1555 how floats of reed (Phragmites australis) and club rush
(Schoenoplectus lacustris) were used when boys in Scandinavia learned to swim. In the mid-1900s, it was still
possible to document Swedish children learning to swim with floats made of this material. The technology is
ancient, known to the Romans as scirpus ratiae. From Olaus Magnus, Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus,
Roma; 1555.
History of a Discipline
BOX 12.1
193
Saami Use of Bark as Food
In 1673, an international bestseller with the title
Lapponia was published. It was compiled by
Johannes Schefferus, and describes the Saami
people and their relationship with the surrounding
landscape. More important for ethnobiologists are
the accounts which had furnished the basis for
Schefferus’ description of Lapland. These accounts,
which were written in the 1670s by clergymen,
some of Saami origin, are unequalled in quality and
comprehensiveness. They provide a wealth of information on Saami methods of hunting, fishing,
reindeer-herding, folk medicine, and wild-plant
harvesting, and deserve further analysis. Samuel
Rheen reports in detail in 1670, for instance, how
the Saami utilized the inner bark of the pine
(Pinus sylvestris) as food by preparing it wrapped
in birch bark in the heat of a fire:
The Lapps also use pine bark for food, in
particular the Lapps living in the forest region.
This bark is called Sautopetzi [savððuobiehtsie],
which they prepare as follows: they peel off the
bark of large pine trees, particularly the bark near
the root and clean it well, so that it looks like fine
linen. This bark is dried in the sun, then cut into
small pieces and then put into the big birch-bark
slices, which they bury in the soil, covering it with
sand and then light a large log fire above. The
bark prepared thus is red and sweet, and they eat it
as a confection.”
This way of utilizing pine bark has been widespread among the Saami during centuries, and has
been documented through a variety of sources in
recent research.
Eighteenth Century: the Beginning of Economic Botany
Several authors, including Paul Alan Cox (2001) and E. Wade Davis (1995), have pointed
to the importance of Carl Linnaeus for the development of ethnobiology.
During the mid-1700s a wealth of empirical data of interest for ethnobiologists was
scientifically and systematically gathered by Linnaeus and his contemporaries. Linnaeus
was an excellent fieldworker, and through his diaries we can follow his method in detail.
In 1732, during a journey to Lapland, Linnaeus studied the knowledge possessed by the
Saami about plants and animals. He never hesitated to approach farmers or reindeer herders,
and made notes of both large and small matters (Svanberg 2002). For example, he recorded
that young Saami men engaged in courting used the scented fungus Haploporus odorus as a
fragrance. In his Flora lapponica from 1737 he noted that Saami bachelors stored
it carefully in a pouch furthest down on their stomach, in order the sweet fragrance it sends
forth might make them more pleasing to their nymphs. Oh you ridiculous Venus, who in foreign
lands have at your service coffee and chocolate, sweets and preserves, wines and lemonades,
precious stones and pearls, gold and silver, silks and pomades, dancing and feasting, music and
merrymaking! Here you must content yourself with a tasteless fungus.
From his travels in Dalecarlia in 1734 Linnaeus reported on the long-distance trade in
medicinal plants. The roots of bitterwort (Gentiana purpurea) were imported by peasant
peddlers into Sweden from Norway. This trade can be traced back to the early sixteenth century. It was gathered by farmers in the vicinity of Valdres. The trade continued for generations, but eventually the excessive demand and the growing scarcity and local extirpation
of the plant in Norway brought it to an end (Svanberg 2001b).
The purpose of Linnaeus’s research was to document the gifts left by the Creator in
Nature. Linnaeus was genuinely interested in learning from the people. He looked closely
at traps and fishing implements; he tasted the food prepared by reindeer herders, and he
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inquired about household remedies; he peered into barns to see how vermin were being kept
away; and he asked old women about the folk names of plants. Although Linnaeus’s travelogues provide us with many first-hand observations of great interest we do not agree
that he was the “father of ethnobotany.” It is probably more correct to label him a bioprospector or economic botanist, because he had little interest in the data in context.
Linnaeus’s travelogues became exemplars for a whole generation of scholars and
developed into an international genre of topographical works including information of
ethnobotanical and ethnozoological interest. Peter Kalm (1716– 1779) gathered a lot
of valuable first-hand information in southwestern Sweden (1741), Russia (1744), and
North America (1749 –1752), while Johan Peter Falck (1732 – 1774), who headed an expedition into Siberia and the Kazak steppe (1768 – 1774), made recordings about animal and
plant knowledge among Turkic and Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia (Svanberg 1987).
We can also mention Jens Christian Svabo (1746 – 1824) on the Faroes, John Lightfoot
(1735– 1788) in Scotland, José Quer y Martı́nez (1695– 1764) in Spain, and Félix de
Avelar Brotero (1744 – 1828) in Portugal. In Poland the priest Krzysztof Kluk (1739–
1796) devoted his life to the study of economic botany. His Dykcyonarz Roślinny “Plant
Dictionary” was an alphabetic encyclopedia of plant uses both copied from other authors
and observed from his area.
For this generation of scientists, folk knowledge of plants and animals was a storehouse
of information which scholars could draw upon. The empiric data from these travelers were
devoted to improving a nation’s and a people’s quality of life and health. Passed down in the
literature, the Linnaean tradition is part of our shared knowledge of plant use today. It has
also been exploited in various contexts for economic development and social change
(Nelson and Svanberg 1987).
Past travelers reported on the ritual use of the hallucinogenic fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) by shamans in northeastern Siberia. Reading these reports, the Swedish clergyman
Samuel Ödmann published in 1784 an article which could be described as an attempt to
use ethnomycological observations to explain the so-called berserker rages among the
Vikings. According to Ödmann they used fly agaric. However, there are no historical sources
or pieces of archaeomycological evidence that the Vikings actually used fly agaric. It is
interesting though, that the notion has become widespread, and Ödmann’s report later
inspired ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson (1898 – 1986) in his search for soma and
magic mushrooms.
Medicinal Plants and Economic Botany
Searching for new drugs is not a primary goal among contemporary ethnobiologists,
but it has been part of the European scholars’ interest in economic plants since
Linnaeus’s time. During his travels in the Swedish countryside Linnaeus observed how peasants used the marsh rosemary (Rhododendron tomentosum) against various ailments
among small livestock and human beings. As a physician, he tried the plant in human
medicine and in a dissertation from 1775 he praises marsh rosemary as a remedy against
scurvy, whooping cough, laryngitis, and leprosy. The Linnaeans and their contemporaries
showed great confidence in finding new medicaments among peasant folk-medicine.
More famous, and often given as an example in textbooks, is the physician William
Withering, who observed how a local female healer in Shropshire achieved good results
by treating patients suffering from edema with an herbal remedy. Withering examined the
herb composition and through deduction found that it must have been the foxglove
History of a Discipline
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(Digitalis purpurea), which was medically active. He prepared an extract of the plant and
examined its effect on patients. The treatment proved successful in reducing fluid buildup in the tissues by its effects on the heart. Trials were extended to more patients.
Withering published his results in 1785 (Balick and Cox 1996).
Nineteenth Century: Explorers and Armchair Scholars
From the mid-nineteenth century—a time of increasing Western scientific explorations in the
world—and onwards, interest increased in documenting folk knowledge and uses of wild
plants and animals. Most of these are entries and passages in travelogues and ethnographical
monographs, but there were also what could be regarded as proto-ethnobiological studies.
Clergyman and local historian Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Luce (1756 – 1842) compiled a
Heilmittel der Ehsten auf der Insel Oesel “Remedies among the Estonians of the island
Saarema” (1829), one of the first systematic medico-ethnobotanical accounts within a
specific area in Europe.
Swiss botanist Pierre Edmond Boissier (1810 – 1885) traveled through the Iberian
Peninsula. Boissier noted that the shepherds of Sierra Nevada collected the endemic
Artemisia granatensis to sell in the city of Granada. The herb was considered a panacea.
Modern ethnobotanical studies have also registered its use and marketing in the area. The
species was officially protected in 1982, since the high demand led to the threat of extinction
(Pardo-de-Santayana and Morales 2010). German scholar Ludwig Hopf (1838 – 1924) published in an in-depth analysis based on a huge amount of comparative material on animals
used as oracles and omens from various times and in various parts of the world. The author
analyses these data from what he calls an “ethnological– zoological” perspective. Rudolph
Krebel gave an account of folk-medicine among various ethnic groups in the Russian Empire
from 1856. Johann Georg Dragendorff (1836 – 1898) in Tartu published Die Heilpflanzen
der verschiedenen Völker und Zeiten “Medicinal Plants of Various Peoples and Times”
(1898), in which he described the use of many species. Czech ethnographer Primus
Sobotka (1841 – 1925) published in 1879 a book containing rich material concerning the
folk beliefs about plants in Slavic countries.
The new currents of interest in aboriginal botany in North America did not pass
unnoticed in Europe. During the Vega Expedition that travelled the North East Passage in
1878– 1879, the ship was trapped in the ice for many months outside a Chukchee village.
To get voucher specimens for his botanical collection, the expedition member Frans
Reinhold Kjellman (1846 – 1907) asked the native Chukchee in the vicinity about food
and household plants. After the expedition returned to Sweden, Kjellman, who was aware
of the American studies, published in 1882 his findings, including both theoretical and methodological discussions.
“What people think about sickness and health, to what cause they ascribe their
physical suffering, and what remedies they use, in order to cure or prevent illness, is derived
from their medical knowledge, their folk medicine,” wrote physician Leopold Glück (1856 –
1907). He worked in Sarajevo and gathered folk remedies in Bosnia and Herzegovina at
the end of the nineteenth century. Glück (1894) not only emphasized an emic perspective,
but also gathered substantial material on traditional medicinal uses of plants among rural
people. In his impressive study from 1894, he listed 108 taxa and their local medical uses
in the region.
Ethnobiological studies in the modern sense were introduced in Europe by a few local
scholars in the nineteenth century. For instance, Paolo Mantegazza (1831 – 1910) wrote in
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Chapter 12 History of Ethnobiological Research in Europe
Figure 12.3
Front page of Zeno Zanetti’s La Medicina delle nostre donne (1892).
1892 La medicina delle nostre donne “The medicine of our women,” where he documented
a large number of folk-medicinal practices, a few of them also plant based. The first proper
ethnobotanical study in Italy, however, was probably that of Giuseppe Ferraro (1845– 1907),
who described traditional plant uses in his home town of Carpeneto d’Acqui. In 1884 Ferraro
listed traditional uses and folk names of dozens of plants. His introduction to this report represented an early attempt to conceptualize the importance of folk botanical studies, although
a clear indication of the adopted methodology is missing from this study.
A few years later the prominent Sicilian folklorist Giuseppe Pitrè (1843 – 1916), in his
Medicina popolare siciliana “Sicilian popular medicine” (1896), described many folk remedies still in use in various areas of Sicily. The approach in this work was more medicoanthropological: Pitrè listed various illnesses and wrote about different animal, vegetal, or
even spiritual treatments. However, in this case too, the methodology was not clearly spelled
out, and the research had more of the characteristics of an overview of information gathered
from many folk sources.
In Poland, over a hundred publications on ethnobotanical topics appeared at the end of
the nineteenth century. Oskar Kolberg (1814– 1890) was an ethnographer who spent his life
traveling around Poland writing down various aspects of local culture. He also noted local
knowledge about plants, with many references to their medicinal, magical and food use.
Józef Rostafiński (1850 – 1928) was a botanist from Cracow. In 1883, he issued through
contemporary media his 70-question inquiry about the traditional use of plants. He received
History of a Discipline
197
Figure 12.4
A questionnaire used by Józef Gajek in his 1948 study of wild food plants in Poland. The study was
performed by volunteers who gathered freelists of wild food plants. A questionnaire like this was used to extract
detailed information on the use of a particular species (in this case it is Centaurea cyanus, whose petals were widely
used to make a refreshing fermented drink). His project provoked a response from over a hundred people: local
teachers, priests, farmers, and even scouts. A year later a similar study was performed regarding medicinal plants.
Courtesy of the archives of the Polish Ethnographic Atlas, Ciezyn; photo by Łukasz Łuczaj.
a few hundred letters from Poles inhabiting the present area of Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus.
The results of his field material have only recently been published.
During the mid-nineteenth century, comprehensive fishery biological research was
initiated in Scandinavia. Studies were based on fieldwork and were conducted in collaboration with fishermen along the coastal areas and lakes. Scholars recorded emic data like local
names, information on old fishing methods, the population’s knowledge and perceptions of
the fish behavior and habitats, and data about the economic importance of local fish fauna. In
1896 questionnaires were distributed in Sweden in order to make a general inventory of the
fauna of the thousands of lakes and rivers in the country. Only a fraction of this material is
published, but today it offers an excellent source material for ethnozoological research.
Early Twentieth Century: Ethnographical Studies
While ethnobotany developed into its own scientific field in North America at the beginning
of the twentieth century, it hardly got any following in Europe. The term itself was only
occasionally used by European scholars before the 1980s (e.g., Borza 1931; Haudricourt
1956; Kowalska-Lewicka 1964; Moloney 1919; Nordenskiöld 1908). Those few European
scholars who did dedicate themselves to ethnobotany, like Frenchman Jacques Barrau,
undertook most of their research outside the continent (Barrau 1971). However, there were
many European scholars within various fields (botany, ecology, ethnology, pharmacology)
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Chapter 12 History of Ethnobiological Research in Europe
who carried out substantial works that clearly qualify as important contributions to the field
of ethnobiology, ethnobotany, and ethnozoology.
In 1908 the ethnographer Erland Nordenskiöld (1877 – 1932) compiled a manual for
ethnographical fieldwork, in which he also discussed traditional knowledge of plants, and
mentioned the word “ethnobotany” for the first time in Swedish. The manual was intended
for Swedes, especially Christian missionaries, who lived and worked in distant lands.
Nordenskiöld himself developed a collaboration with pharmacologist Carl Gustaf
Santesson (1862 – 1939) for the analysis of poisons used by South American Indians.
Santesson himself also collaborated with other ethnologists, and in 1939 he published an
important analysis of the lichen Letharia vulpina, gathered from a Saami hunter who used
it as a poison for killing wolves, an early study of ethnopharmacology (Holmstedt 1995).
Several researchers within cultural geography, such as John Frödin (1879 – 1960) in the
1920s to 1950s, published integrated, ecologically oriented studies of local resources and the
role human activities played in landscape transformation in mountainous areas of Europe.
These studies are similar to today’s problem-oriented ethnobiological research carried out
in North America. They also provide a deeper historical dimension that is lacking in
many modern studies. They stress both biological and socio-cultural perspectives.
BOX 12.2
Blessed Bouquets
The blessing of herbs and wild flowers in churches
used to have a high cultural value in Poland and
some other Catholic countries. The blessed plants
were later used to heal people and animals and
in magic rituals (smudging ill individuals, burning
to protect from thunderstorm, hanging in prominent places in the house, etc.). The tradition
arose as a mixture of Catholic liturgy and preChristian beliefs.
In Poland flowers are blessed twice. On the
eighth day after Corpus Christi, called Oktawa
Bożego Ciała (usually in mid-June) small wreaths
of plants are blessed (e.g., Asarum europaeum,
Thymus spp., Fragaria vesca, Potentilla spp.,
Sedum acre, Trifolium spp., Rosa spp.). On the
day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (15
August, called Matka Boska Zielna, i.e., Mary of
Herbs) there tend to be larger bouquets. Apart
from wild herbs (Hypericum perforatum, Achillea
millefolium, Tanacetum vulgare), they must include
shoots of cereals, dill, an apple on a stick, some
vegetables (e.g., onion or garlic), some forest
fruits (Viburnum opulus, Sorbus aucuparia,
Corylus avellana) and garden herbs (Calendula
officinalis, Salvia officinalis, etc.).
Seweryn Udziela was an ethnographer who
spent his life studying the folk customs of the
Cracow area. Between 1894 and 1899 he gathered
detailed information on the composition of
Assumption Day bouquets in 13 villages south of
Cracow. The results of his study were published
in 1931. Although we do not know the methods
he used (e.g., how many bouquets were studied)
he documented his research using voucher specimens and wrote down which plants were used in
the bouquets in each village. His herbarium is
stored as a special collection of the Herbarium of
the Institute of Botany of the Polish Academy of
Sciences. Udziela also studied children’s toys
made of plants—the results were published in a
separate article from 1929. As early as in 1883
another scholar from Cracow, Józef Rostafiński,
issued a detailed 70-question ethnobotanical questionnaire concerning all aspects of plant use, published in several Polish newspapers at the time.
One of the questions also concerned the composition of the blessed bouquets. Recently Łukasz
Łuczaj surveyed the composition of bouquets
brought to churches using digital photo close-ups.
This technique allows rapid acquisition of high
quality data and will make it possible to compare
future changes of bouquet composition. In 2008
in many rural areas the bouquets still have a similar
composition to those from Udziela’s nineteenth
century study, but gradually garden flowers are
replacing wild herbs.
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Figure 12.5 A herbal bouquet from Stary Żmigród (the Beskid Niski Mountains). Such bouquets are still
brought to Polish churches on Assumption Day (15 August). They are believed to acquire a healing and magical
power. Photograph courtesy of Łukasz Łuczaj. (See color insert.)
Kazimierz Moszyński (1887 – 1959) was a Polish ethnographer, originally trained as a
biologist. His Kultura ludowa Słowian “Folk culture of Slavs” (1929– 1939) includes many
pages on plants used in food, dyes, medicine, and magic, as well as beliefs concerning
animals. He also attempted to create the first Polish ethnographic atlas in the 1930s, including an ethnobotanical question about apotropaic plants used during midsummer night
celebrations (June 22). After World War II, ethnographer Józef Gajek (1907 – 1987) planned
the compilation of a Polish ethnographic atlas. Ethnobotanical questionnaires were distributed throughout the country. This study is richly documented with voucher specimens
and used freelisting, without pre-suggesting the use of any species (Łuczaj 2008).
Uses of plants in calendaric rites, festivals, folk beliefs, and household economy have
been studied by many ethnologists. Plants as religious and social symbols are analyzed
by British anthropologist Jack Goody in The Culture of Flowers (1993). Phebe Fjellström
published a comparative study on the use of garden angelica (Angelica archangelica)
among the Saami and the Scandinavians (Fjellström 1964). Gustav Ränk in the early 1960s
studied the use of the insectivorous butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris) to curdle milk, and the
custom of the divining rod. Garðar Guðmundsson (1996) studied the harvest of lyme-grass
(Leymus arenarius) for food in Iceland, Támas Grynaeus (2001) wrote on the importance
of the houseleek (Sempervivum tectorum) as a medicinal plant in Hungary, and Ida
Eichelter-Sennhauser examined the use of plants in Austrian popular religion. Holger
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Chapter 12 History of Ethnobiological Research in Europe
Rasmussen (1975) has written a monograph on the Danish early spring traditional custom of
gathering sweet woodruff (Asperula odorata) and making it into green wreaths. The cultural
and economic importance of cloudberries (Rubus chaemaemorus) and cowberries
(Vaccinium vitis-idaea) in Scandinavia during the last century has been studied by several
scholars, for instance Marianne Lien in Norway, and Nils-Arvid Bringéus (2000) in
Sweden. All these studies discuss their topics in wider European contexts.
In 1927, Adam Maurizio in Lwów (Lviv) published his Geschichte unserer
Pflanzennahrung “History of our food plants.” This study was an attempt to analyze a
wild food plant from a wider Eurasian perspective and became one of the classics in its
field. The gathering of foodstuffs from the wild has been an important issue for many
ethnologists. Finnish ethnologist Ilmari Manninen (1894 – 1935) had published a comparative study on gathering wild plants in northern Eurasia already in 1931, and Hungarian
ethnologist Béla Gunda (1911 – 1994) published another overview based on his own fieldwork in Central Europe (Gunda 1949).
An extensive study of the use of wild edible plants was launched in Poland in 1964 –
1969. It was carried out within a large project on material culture, and studied in a preselected grid of over 300 villages. The questionnaire concerned was over 100 pages long,
which was the reason why it was often filled in hastily and superficially. Detailed questions
about the use of certain species were included, for example, collecting spring sap from trees,
and the gathering and consumption of fungi (Łuczaj 2010).
A five-volume work Íslenskir sjávarhættir “Icelandic sea-harvesting” (1980 –1986), by
Icelander Lúðvı́k Kristjánsson (1911 –2000), covers harvesting food and other utilities from
the sea. A comparative work on the use of local food and emergency food in the circumpolar
areas was published by Kerstin Eidlitz in 1969. Wild plants as food are still a popular topic
for many ethnologists (Fenton 2000).
POPULAR MEDICINE
Studies of popular medicine among ethnologists are deeply related to ethnobiology. These
studies began at the end of the nineteenth century, and developed during the twentieth
century, for example, Ignacio Marı́a Barriola, Victor Lis Quibén and Ingrid Kuschick in
Spain, Elfriede Grabner in Austria, Valer Butură in Romania, Ingjald ReichbornKjennerud in Norway, Justin Qvigstad in Sápmi, and R. K. Rasmussen in the Faroe
Islands. Folk remedies and healing methods did not only include parts of plants and animals
(cf. Honko 1982; Sõukand and Raal 2005). Most of these studies reflect a strong medicohistorical and ethnological point of view and are mainly interested in the cultural and
social aspects of folk culture. Some studies include minorities like the Roma (Tillhagen
1956). Only a few more recent studies provide proper identifications of the plants or animals
involved (Muriel 2008; Allen and Hatfield 2004). Considerable numbers of written records
on folk healers and popular remedies are to be found in, for instance, Danish, Estonian,
Finnish, Hellenic, Icelandic, Irish, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, and Swedish
folklore archives.
José Marı́a Palacı́n recorded a huge amount of data in Aragon for his dissertation in
1983 and demonstrates the richness of European popular knowledge. For example, he
recorded 1500 remedies from one of his informants (coming from 29 different minerals,
31 animal, and 234 plant species) for healing some 203 illnesses. He needed 69 interviews
with her, which were carried out over a period of six years. This work shows the huge
amount of knowledge lost in the past decades. During Pardo-de-Santayana’s field studies
Folklore and Plant Name Research
201
in Campoo, Spain (2005), he was commonly told that he should have asked their parents.
Informants said that they knew practically nothing compared to their parents and grandparents. As an example, the informant who provided the most information in the ethnopharmacological survey included uses of 41 plants, three animals and four minerals for
healing 30 human and animal illnesses (Pardo-de-Santayana 2008).
FOLKLORE AND PLANT NAME RESEARCH
Traditional plant names contain information about popular taxonomy, with plants arranged
by color, features and other characteristics, as noted by the Danish philologist Marius
Kristensen in 1911. Studies of plants in dialects have a long tradition in Europe. Local
names are already to be found in plant lists from the 1600s and early 1700s, but it is also
possible to study, for instance, Anglo Saxon and North Germanic plant names from the
Viking age, with the help of rune stones, toponyms, and other sources. Nikolai I.
Annenkov’s (1819– 1899) dictionary of plant names published in 1859 contains numerous
Russian folk names and names in indigenous languages of northern and central Russia. In
recent years, research on plant names has also begun to integrate the results of modern
ethnobiology.
Heinrich Marzell (1885 – 1970) was the author of several hundred articles and about
20 books on Volksbotanik. His five volumes Wörterbuch der deutschen Pflanzennamen
“Dictionary of German plant names” (1943 – 1979) represents the most important work on
the subject published in any language. The folklore of plants had already become a research
area in the mid-19th century. One of the most comprehensive works in the genre is Eugene
Rolland’s Flore populaire “Popular flora,” published in 11 volumes (1896 –1914).
There are many handbooks on the folklore and use of wild plants published in various
European countries. Most of them are based on various written sources such as old herbals,
travelogues, folklore records, and archaeological material. The application of source criticism is still nowhere near rigorous enough, and so we continue to find in publications
much material taken from already published sources, rather than being based on local or
specific knowledge. One good example is the information often given about the plant
Ranunculus scleratus, used, it is said, by beggars to produce sores and ulcers, in order to
excite pity and obtain gifts. No further contextual information is given. This is a 2000year-old story taken from Apuleius Platonicus, still presented in literature as being contemporary (cf. Svanberg 1998b).
Among more recent and more reliable volumes we can mention, for instance, Roy
Vickery’s A Dictionary of Plant-Lore (1995) on plant knowledge in Great Britain, and
Tess Darwin’s book on The Scots Herbal (1996) on Scottish plant lore. Vickery has also
published a study of unlucky plants, on the basis of a survey conducted by the Folklore
Society in London between 1982 and 1984 (Vickery 1985). The Belgian Marcel De
Cleen and Maria Claire Lejeune’s encyclopedia (2002 – 2004) is an impressive reference
work which reviews ritual plants in central Europe. Pierre Lieutaghi is a French botanist
who has analyzed plant use in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (Lieutaghi 1983).
The Dane Vagn J. Brøndegaard has published countless studies in ethnobotany, based
mainly on historical sources, and has gathered new material through interviews, not only in
Denmark but also for instance in Spain (Brøndegaard 1985). Among his most important
publications are his comparative studies of children’s plant lore and use as toys and
games. Brøndegaard has published several multi-volume handbooks on Danish ethnobotany
and ethnozoology in the 1980s and 1990s.
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BOTANISTS ON PLANT USE
Some botanists, including a few amateurs, have undertaken ethnobotanical fieldwork of
interest in Europe. In 1900 the first botanist to publish a proper ethnobotanical work in
Italy, Giovanni Pons, wrote an article on the folk botany of the Waldensian Alpine valleys
in Northwestern Italy. Once again details about methodology, such as sampling, number of
interviewees, and adopted field techniques were not reported, but the approach of Pons’
research was surely interdisciplinary: the authors reported linguistic labels of folk taxa,
their local uses, and botanical voucher specimens were apparently collected. A more
economic – botanical perspective was taken by the medical doctor and botanist Oreste
Mattirolo (1856 – 1947), who in 1919 wrote the first food ethnobotanical survey in Italy, a
review on wild food plant uses in Piedmont.
Danish dendrologist Axel Lange’s (1871 – 1941) booklets from the 1930s, discussing
local plant use on Danish islands, qualify as pioneering ethnobotanical works in Scandinavia. Also in Norway, several botanists performed ethnobotanical studies, that is, Jens
Holmboe (1880 – 1943) and Rolf Nordhagen (1894 – 1979). From Sweden we can mention
Gösta Ilien’s exemplary thorough and methodological field study of butterbur (Petasites
hybridus) and its role for the peasants as veterinary medicine, published in 1945. Lisa
Johansson (1894 – 1982) gathered information on plant use in the mid-1940s among crofters
in northern Sweden, especially as dyes (over 400 recipes), medicine, and for technical purposes, completed with voucher specimens.
In Romania, Alexandru Borza (1887 – 1971), who spent a lifetime studying the use of
plants, published a comprehensive handbook of traditional plant knowledge that covers not
only Romania, but also Moldavia, Bulgaria, and adjacent areas in the Balkan Peninsula
(Borza 1968).
In Italy, proper systematic ethnobotanical studies began after World War II. They were
initiated by scholars at the Department of Botany of the University of Genoa, at that time the
lynch-pin of ethnomedical studies in Europe, with the beginning of Antonio Scarpa’s
research team. The first Italian ethnobotanical studies come from this research group. For
instance, Elsa Bertagnon (1955) and Albarosa Bandini (1961) investigated the use of medicinal plants in the mountainous regions of Eastern Liguria, and Caterina Chiovenda-Bensi
(1957) did field ethnobotanical research in Walser communities in Piedmont.
From the 1960s onwards, more and more ethnobotanical studies were conducted within
a number of botanical institutes at Italian universities (especially in Genoa, Padua, Pisa,
Florence, and Rome), generally carried out by medical botanists at pharmacy schools.
Ethnobotany has for many decades been a subject area officially classified by the Italian
Ministry of Research as part of the broader medical botany/pharmacognosy area.
Between 1925 and 1973, botanist Ove Arbo Høeg (1898 – 1993) gathered an enormous
amount of field material from all over Norway, published in 1974 in his Planter og tradisjon
“Plants and tradition.” He has published many articles on plant use—for instance on children’s games—and also a monograph on the juniper (Juniperus communis) in Norwegian
folk tradition in 1981. This monograph was published by the Norwegian Forestry Museum
as the first volume in a series on the cultural history of Norwegian trees. A successor of
Høeg is Torbjørn Alm at Tromsø Museum. He has published monographs on various plant
taxa, based on interviews made with Kven, Norwegian, and Saami informants of North
Norway (Alm 2002).
Gustav Vilbaste’s (1885 – 1967) rich plant name material with many notes on folk
botany from Estonia is worth mentioning (Vilbaste 1993). He is, with his many publications
and a large collection of records, considered the founder of ethnobotany in Estonia.
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203
Jerzy Wojciech Szulczewski (1879– 1969) contributed immensely to the ethnobiology
of western Poland. Trained as a biologist, he gathered valuable, detailed, and reliable
material about medicinal plants, and folk beliefs about plants and edible mushrooms. He
was a pioneer in the field of market surveys. One of his achievements is a detailed record
of plants and mushrooms sold in the market of Poznań, where he lists as many as 50 taxa
sold there. At the end of the twentieth century, Piotr Köhler published excellent studies
on the history of Polish ethnobotany, rediscovering Rostafiński’s and Udziela’s works
(Köhler 1996).
BOX 12.3
Traditional Toys
Studies of material culture give a good opportunity
of understanding how locally available biological
resources could be used. Almost every part of an
animal was utilized in pre-industrial Europe. On
the Faroes, pilot whales have provided a lot of
benefits like food, fat, fuel, construction material,
and tools for the inhabitants.
As elsewhere, the children on the islands used
locally available material to create their own toys.
The thin tendon discs of bone that lie between the
vertebrae in the region of the tail of the pilot whale
were used to make whirling discs. Ethnographer
Nelson Annandale observed this during his visit to
the Faroes at the beginning of the twentieth century.
He describes how they made a whirling disc by
threading the thin tendon disc “upon a loop of
wool or string. The ends of the loop are held, as
wide apart as possible, in the two hands, and it is
caused to rotate in such a way that it becomes completely twisted, the discs then revolve rapidly, producing a humming sound, if the hands be alternately
approached to and drawn apart from another.”
Nowadays, the Faroe islanders only use the
meat and blubber of the whale. However, these
kinds of whirling discs are sometimes still made
in the Faroes.
Figure 12.6 Faroese whirling disc (snurra) made of a tendon disc from a pilot whale. Photograph
courtesy of Ingvar Svanberg.
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Chapter 12 History of Ethnobiological Research in Europe
Spanish botanist Pio Font Quer (1888– 1964) is the author of one of the most influential
works about Iberian medicinal plants, Plantas medicinales “Medicinal Plants” from 1961.
His book consists of a very interesting introduction and monographs of medicinal plants.
Each monograph includes a critical review of the plant’s medicinal uses. Although he
never used the term ethnobotany, he has inspired modern ethnobotanists, and he has been
considered the father of this discipline in Spain.
ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN HUMAN AND NONHUMAN ANIMALS
As in ethnobotany, most research in ethnozoology has been carried out within the framework
of ethnology. When Faroese ethnographer Robert Joensen (1912 – 1997) realized that his
fellow islanders had an extraordinary store of knowledge of things “they had learned through
their daily work on the land, in the mountains and the sea,” he started to make a comprehensive record of all they knew about fishing, hunting, and animal husbandry, resulting in
several books. Interesting studies on the relationship between animals and rural people
have been conducted by the above-mentioned Hungarian ethnologist Béla Gunda, who
has published detailed studies on such diverse topics as taming cranes among peasants in
Central Europe, gathering of eggs of waterfowl in Hungary, traps and trapping in the
Carpatho-Balkan area and the use of fish poisons in the Balkan Peninsula—all excellent
works (Gunda 1979). Nils Storå is another researcher discussing the ethnoecological and
ethnozoological aspects of peasant life in the Finnish archipelago (e.g., Storå 1985). Mart
Mäger (1935 – 1993) gathered a rich body of material based on fieldwork on Estonian
folk ornithology, which was only partly used in his Eesti linnunimetused “Estonian bird
names” (1967).
Scottish ethnologist Alexander Fenton has made detailed research on the way of life
among islanders in Orkney and Shetland. His many studies, collected in The Northern
Isles (1997), give a good insight into how dependent on local biological resources the
islanders were in former times. Other studies include fowling and egg gathering (Berg
1980; Nørrevang 1986) and traditional whaling in the Faroes (Joensen 2009). Patricia
Lysaght has published excellent studies on food provision on Great Blasket Island on the
Irish west coast (Lysaght 2001). Popular hunting is another topic of interest for ethnobiologists. Howe (1981) provides a sophisticated theoretical study on traditional fox hunting
in the English countryside.
Researchers in ethnobiology seldom pay attention to invertebrates (cf. Svanberg 2009).
However, Norwegian linguist Geir Wiggen recently published an interesting study on traditional names of lower animals (Wiggen 2008).
TOWARDS A SCIENCE OF ETHNOBIOLOGY IN EUROPE
SINCE 1980
Although ethnobotany has existed for over a century as a named research field in North
America, it was not until the 1980s that ethnobiology and ethnobotany emerged as independent academic disciplines in Europe. Many European scholars still dwell within disciplines
like anthropology, botany, and ecology, but ethnobiology has grown rapidly over the last
15– 20 years. An increasing number of scholars view ethnobiology as a separate discipline
with its own methods and theories, not only as a hard-to-define multidisciplinary field.
In Europe, an abundance of courses, seminars, and annual conferences are now available,
Current Trends
205
especially in Great Britain, Italy, and Spain. One of the largest ethnobotanical libraries in the
world, V.J. Brøndegaard’s collection, is now available to scholars at the Royal Swedish
Academy of Agriculture and Forestry in Stockholm.
Ethnobiology in Europe has built further on the extensive research which has already
been carried out in a number of other fields (botany, ethnology, folklore, ecology, human
geography, linguistics, and zoology). The first review covering all Italian ethnobotanical
studies until 2004 has been recently compiled by Paolo Maria Guarrera, ethnobotanist at
the National Folkloric Museum of Rome. This review considers hundreds of primary folkloric and ethnobotanical literature and field studies carried out in the last century in Italy
(Guarrera 2006), and followed an impressive review of Sardinian ethnobotanical data
(Atzei 2003). A full ethnobotanical bibliography of Polish ethnographic literature (nearly
400 articles and books) between 1876 and 2005 (Klepacki 2007), and a review of recent
ethnobotanical studies in Spain were recently published (Morales et al. 2011).
CURRENT TRENDS
Ethnobiologists in Europe should continue to systematize the large body of data collected in
the last century by ethnographers and linguists (Babulka 1996; Łuczaj and Szymański
2007). We need more monographs like Nadiya Varhol’s interesting and uniquely detailed
study of plants in the culture of the Carpatho-Rusyn minority in Slovakia published in
2002. Few studies compare in detail the materials gathered in neighboring countries
(Ståhlberg and Svanberg 2006; Svanberg 2007b). Some focus has been given on gender
perspectives on folkbiological knowledge (Pieroni 2003). Analysis of material culture is
an important issue (Svanberg 1998a). Dendrochronology is also an important method for
ethnobiologists (cf. Niklasson et al. 1999). Technical analyses of textiles, tools, and furniture
is useful for ethnobiologists (cf. Cybulska et al. 2008). Plant monographs continue to be
important (Svanberg 1997; Molina et al. 2009; Vallès et al. 2004). Many contemporary
Russian scholars do their ethnobotanical studies within linguistics, for instance Nadezhda
Konovalova (2001), who has researched historical Russian plant names, Julia Koppaleva
(2007), who has studying the naming of plants in Karelia, and Valeria Kolosova, who in
2003 published a study comparing Slavonic plant names and folklore related to plants.
A priority is recording unknown traditions of local animal and plant knowledge in
rural areas. Fieldwork is still possible, especially in eastern and southern Europe, with
recent publications from Albania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Ireland,
Serbia, Spain, and Portugal (e.g., Camejo-Rodrigues et al. 2003; Dolan 2007; Guarrera
et al. 2006; Hanlidou et al. 2004; Ivancheva and Stantcheva 2000; Jaric et al. 2007;
Redzic 2006).
A few larger international projects have recently been carried out in Europe. Flora
Celtica is based at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh, and is documenting the knowledge and sustainable use of native plants in the Celtic regions of Europe. The project has
focused on the use of native plants in Scotland (Miliken and Bridgewater 2004).
The European Commission has so far funded only one large collaborative ethnobiological project in Europe (RUBIA 2003– 2006), which was focused on the evaluation and
comparative analysis of ethnobotanical knowledge as cultural heritage in 12 selected
southern European and Mediterranean areas (González-Tejero et al. 2008; Hadjichambis
et al. 2008; Pieroni et al. 2006), while in another funded collaborative project ethnobotany
represented a minor part within a main bioprospecting framework for researching new
nutraceuticals (Heinrich et al. 2006; Rivera et al. 2005).
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Chapter 12 History of Ethnobiological Research in Europe
Figure 12.7 The regal fern, Osmunda regalis, is still a popular domestic medicine in Asturias and Cantabria,
Spain. (a) Shows the gathered rhizomes of the fern; and (b) a bottle of Antojil wine made of the rhizomes macerated
in white wine. Photograph courtesy of Manuel Pardo-de-Santayana. (See color insert.)
Ian Majnep and Ralph Bulmer’s Birds of My Kalam Country (1977; see Hunn this
volume) is now a minor classic in ethnobiology, and has been called the first postmodern
writing on the subject. Bulmer himself referred to the cooperation between the Danish
ethnographer Emelie Demant-Hatt, and reindeer-herding Johan Turi’s book from 1910
that had obviously inspired him (Marcus 1991). An author working in the same tradition
is Yngve Ryd (2005) who, in cooperation with elderly native Saami consultants, has produced several in-depth studies of ancient knowledge of snow, fire, and predators. By spending many years with his Saami consultants, Ryd obtained details concerning the Saami
landscape like no other before. This method of intensive work with a few well informed
native consultants will probably be more common in the future, as we try to save old knowledge among rural people in Europe.
We have also seen an increasing number of studies on local ecological knowledge in
various settings of Europe (Molnar et al. 2008; Ruotsala 1999; Svanberg 2005). In a
series of works attracting international attention, leading European system ecologists have
analyzed those insights regarding the ecosystem—its function and vulnerability—which
are embodied in folk knowledge (Colding and Folke 2002).
Traditional homegardens are to be found in mountainous areas in various parts of
Europe and we have seen several ethnobiological publications over the last few years
Current Trends
207
(Agelet et al. 2000; Reyes-Garcı́a et al. 2010; Szabó et al. 2002; Vogl-Lukasser and Vogl
2001). Homegardens have a multiplicity of functions and are a repository of a diversity of
species and cultivars. Gardens with Angelica archangelica can still be found in the Faroe
Islands, Iceland, and Norway, almost as they were during the Viking age. An old strain of
a sweeter kind of cultivated angelica still exists in Norway (Fosså 2006).
Ethnomycological studies have so far been very rarely conducted in Europe, apart from
Poland (e.g., Szulczewski 1996). Some works have partially addressed this issue within
more general food ethnobotanical field studies (i.e., Pieroni et al. 2005) or ethnolinguistics
(Bartnicka-Da˛bkowska 1964). However, a first purely ethnomycological research project has
recently been completed in Italy (Camangi et al. 2008).
Ethnoveterinary practice is another field attracting contemporary scholars, especially in
Southern Europe (Blanco et al. 1999; Bonet and Vallès 2006; Bullitta et al. 2007; Pieroni
et al. 2006; Uncini Manganelli et al. 2001). Recent field studies have shifted from listing
local veterinary uses of medicinal plants to including local knowledge of plants important
in peasants’ communities for improving the quality of meat and dairy products (Pieroni
et al. 2004). An overall ethnoveterinary checklist devoted to veterinarians has been recently
implemented in Italy by reviewing more than 100 folkloric and ethnobotanical fieldworks
conducted in Italy during the second half of the twentieth century (Viegi et al. 2003). On
the other hand, ethnoveterinary studies in Scandinavia have taken a more historical perspective (Brag and Hansen 1994; Waller et al. 2001).
Recently, studies of perceptions and uses of plants among migrant communities have
emerged (Ceuterick et al. 2008; Pieroni and Gray 2008; Pieroni et al. 2007; Sandhu and
Heinrich 2005; Van Andel and Westers 2010).
Figure 12.8
Svanberg.
Traditional Angelica garden in the village Gjógv, Faroe Islands. Photograph courtesy of Ingvar
208
Chapter 12 History of Ethnobiological Research in Europe
There are neglected fields also within European ethnobiology. The importance of
animal and plant knowledge among children deserves more attention (Łuczaj 2008,
2009). Child culture relating to plants and animals very seldom carries over into adulthood,
and has therefore remained unnoticed by scholars. As Myrdene Anderson (2000) has shown,
children’s beliefs and practices sometimes contain “survivals” of older plant knowledge.
There are some recent historically oriented studies on the link between animals and
humans, but the field deserves more attention (Chevallier et al. 1988; Svanberg 2001a,
2006, 2007a; Svanberg and Ægisson 2006). Ethnoentomology is rare, but a recent study
describes how Carntian children used to eat the sweet crop from moths of the genus
Zygaena (Zagrobelny et al. 2009). Traditional knowledge about predators has been
documented among reindeer herdsmen. Fish management is another important issue
(Eythorsson 1993). Perhaps Ragnar Kinzelbach’s (1999) cultural zoology approach can
inspire more theoretically sophisticated studies within the field of ethnozoology in
Europe. Keeping pets has a very long tradition in Europe. Not only dogs and cats, but numerous other species, have been used as companion animals. The relationship people have with
these animals is another neglected topic for European ethnobiologists.
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Chapter
13
Ethnomycology: Fungi and
Mushrooms in Cultural
Entanglements
SVETA YAMIN-PASTERNAK
University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK
SUBJECTS OF THE THIRD KINGDOM
213
THE BEGINNINGS AND FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES OF ETHNOMYCOLOGY
215
METHODS IN ETHNOMYCOLOGY
216
THE MANY REWARDS OF THE THIRD HUNT
219
MUSHROOMS IN ART AND MATERIAL CULTURE
222
ALL IN ONE: MEDICINE, POISON, AND FOOD
224
CONCLUSION
227
REFERENCES
227
SUBJECTS OF THE THIRD KINGDOM
This chapter explores various uses, beliefs, and practices connected with fungi and mushrooms that exist in different cultures: the study known as ethnomycology. Fungi are a
large group of organisms belonging to the kingdom Myceteae, some of which unearth the
fleshy parts we call mushrooms. In colloquial speech the terms “mushrooms” and “fungi”
are often used interchangeably, yet these terms have different meanings. Only a small part
of all the fungi that exist in the world actually produce mushrooms. As a fruiting body, similar to a potato or an apple, a mushroom constitutes not an autonomous life form, but a part of
a larger organism—the fungus.
Yeasts, molds, and skin infections are also fungal organisms, but fall outside the domain
of mushroom hunting, cultivation, and cookery. Many types of yeasts have a long history of
being cultivated and used by humans in food and drink preparation, but their roles are very
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
213
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Chapter 13 Ethnomycology: Fungi and Mushrooms in Cultural Entanglements
different from that of mushrooms (see Dugan 2008). The fact that, in some cultures, people
avoid mushrooms out of fear that their skin may rot upon contact indicates that in at least
some cases they recognize a connection between the fruiting body of a wild fungus and a
skin fungus, ascribing a homeopathic “like produces like” quality to the relationship between
the two.
Fungi are neither animals nor plants. They constitute a separate kingdom of organisms
called Myceteae, also known as the “Third Kingdom.” This label is connected to an older
understanding of how animals, fungi, and plants are related in their distant evolutionary
past, which mistakenly placed the Plant Kingdom—Plantae—as the intermediary between
Animalia and Mycetae. Recent research indicates that fungi are genetically closer to animals
than they are to plants (Schaechter 1997). Animals and fungi share a common single-celled
ancestor. Around 1.1 billion years ago this ancestor’s lineage split from the one that eventually gave rise to plants. While relatively new to modern science, this finding is remarkably
consistent with a number of Native American cosmologies, which regard mushrooms as
ancestral modes of fully-formed living beings like birds, animals, and fish, but not of
plants (Berezkin 1997; Hunn 2008; Lampman 2004). Another recent body of research
suggests a connection between human activity and the development of certain groups of
fungi. It is not an evolutionary relationship, but rather an ecological one, in which “many
of the edible mushrooms most valued by humans thrive in disturbed forests in close proximity to human settlements” (Arora and Shepard 2008: 209).
In the life cycles of many fungi, mushrooms are responsible for initiating reproduction, which they do by releasing microscopic spores. Under favorable ecological
circumstances, spores produced by mushrooms germinate into threads of cells called
hyphae, which then connect with other threads in the soil to form a fungal network called
the mycelium (plural mycelia). These vast, interlacing mycelial networks extend through
the soils of practically all life-supporting landmasses. Fungi perform vital ecosystem
functions, decomposing and recycling dead matter and carrying essential nutrients to
other organisms feeding from the soil. Paul Stamets, whose work has been instrumental
in shaping our understanding of the roles mushrooms play in the ecosystem (see Stamets
1999, 2000, 2005), suggests that we think of the mycelial webs as nature’s internet
(2005), a networking system which facilitates the flow of information between its many
interrelated components.
The importance of mushrooms in the natural environment does not always mirror
their standing in the human world. The latter varies widely. Yet, we do find a resemblance
in the approaches that social and natural scientists use to advance the understanding of
fungi. A forest ecologist may be interested in understanding how certain combinations of
mycelia work together to provide soil nutrients favored by a particular species of trees.
For an evolutionary geneticist, investigating the speciation of certain fungi may shed light
on questions about our planet’s distant past. A study of human attitudes toward fungi,
from various standpoints, throughout time and in different parts of the world may help a
social scientist illuminate broader cultural and historical processes.
Stamets observes that fungi outnumber plants by at least six times. Of the fungi species
that produce mushrooms, so far only about 10% have been identified. What that means, says
Stamets, is that “our taxonomic knowledge of mushrooms is exceeded by our ignorance by at
least one order of magnitude” (Stamets 2005: 8). It is true that humankind has a long way to
go in uncovering the riches of the mushroom world.
At the same time, the number of fungi known and used by people around the world is
notable. A conservative estimate shows that 1069 mushroom species are being used for food
alone (Boa 2004). People also use mushrooms for medicine, art and craft, ritual practice and
The Beginnings and Foundational Principles of Ethnomycology
215
spiritual enlightenment, intoxication and recreation, and a number of other applications
ranging from insecticide to soil fertilizer. We now have at least some information about
mushroom use, or about cultural attitudes toward mushrooms in places where they are not
used, for every continent. In addition to the longstanding Indigenous practices associated
with mushroom use found in parts of Africa (Buyck 2008; Chileshe 2005; Dijk et al. 2003;
Härkönen et al. 1993; Morris 1984; Pieroni and Price 2006; Saarimäki et al. 1994), Asia
(Anderson 1990; Christensen et al. 2008; Imazeki 1973; Imazeki and Wasson 1973; Tsing
2005), Central and South America (Garibay-Orijel et al. 2007; Lampman 2004, 2007b;
Montoya et al. 2008; Pérez-Moreno et al. 2008; Plotkin 2000; Shepard et al. 2008; Zent
2008), Middle East (Shavit 2008), Australia (Trappe et al. 2008), and Papua New Guinea
(Heim 1972; Reay 1960; Treu and Adamson 2005), recent studies also document how local
knowledge, perception, and practices associated with mushrooms change during historical
contacts with other cultures or as a response to fairly recent commoditization and global
trade (Guissou et al. 2008; Härkönen 1998; Letcher 2007; Sitta and Floriani 2008; YaminPasternak 2007a,b). Among the periodical publications that regularly report on research in
ethnomycology are Economic Botany, Ethnobiology, Ethnopharmacology, International
Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms, and The Fungi Magazine. McIlvainiea, the now discontinued journal of the North American Mycological Association, carried relevant articles in
nearly every issue.
THE BEGINNINGS AND FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES
OF ETHNOMYCOLOGY
Although cultural attitudes toward mushrooms have been noted by earlier writers, the establishment of ethnomycology as a distinct area of research is credited to the work of Valentina
and Gordon Wasson. It was the contrast in their own feelings that piqued the couple’s interest
in the subject: Valentina, a Russian émigré, adored mushrooms, while her Anglo-Saxon
American husband trembled at the idea of harvesting them for food. One of the important
observations the Wassons made is that polarized sentiments toward mushrooms are not
restricted to the cultures of their own Anglo-Saxon and Slavic heritages. Many other
societies show strong feelings toward mushrooms, either rejecting them with fear and dislike
(even disgust) or passionately embracing any opportunity to harvest and consume, or simply
converse on the subject of harvesting, cooking, and eating mushrooms. Having defined the
former as mycophobes and the latter as mycophiles, the Wassons then attempted to survey as
widely as possible the mushroom lore of cultures around the world, in order to find out where
each of them stands on the scale of mycophilia and mycophobia (Wasson and Wasson 1957).
Since then, a number of authors have commented on the question of cultural attitudes toward
mushrooms (see Anderson 2005; Arora 1986; Fine 1998; Lévi-Strauss 1976; Morgan 1995;
Schaetchter 1997; Toporov 1985; Yamin-Pasternak 2007). Some criticize the Wasson
dichotomy for overly generalizing, allowing little room for gradient and variation within
specific communities, where some individuals may know and care more about mushrooms,
and others less (Letcher 2007; Mapes et al. 2000).
The scholarship emerging over the course of the past few decades about ways that
people think about and utilize mushrooms puts us at advantage over Valentina and
Gordon Wasson, whose personal experience with the Third Kingdom has ignited their curiosity enough to define ethnomycology as a field of study. Although contemporary studies
reveal “a far broader and more nuanced range of cultural attitudes toward mushrooms”
(Arora and Shepard 2008) than we could account for by relying exclusively on the
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Chapter 13 Ethnomycology: Fungi and Mushrooms in Cultural Entanglements
Wasson dichotomous framework, both the polarity of attitudes in some cases and continuity
of others suggest that for a study of mushrooms and people, the notions mycophilia and
mycophobia may be worth revisiting.
METHODS IN ETHNOMYCOLOGY
Natural scientists categorize fungi into groups based on how they derive nourishment
from the environment: saprophytic fungi decompose dead organic matter, parasitic fungi
invade other living organisms, and mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic interdependent
relationships with trees and other plants. Local classifications, used by people who do not
employ the language of science, may reflect an awareness of similar ecological principles
or may emphasize a different quality of a mushroom, one that carries a meaning in the history
and worldview of a people. Thus, for example, the English designation “toadstool” reflects
an association between mushrooms and toads, found in Britain and a number of other
societies (see Morgan 1995). The polypore (Ganoderma applanatum) that many English
speakers call the “artist’s conk,” because of its applicability in art and craft, is known as
the “monkey seat” in Japan (Wasson 1973). Armillariella mellea, called the “honey mushroom” in English after its golden color, is called opionok in Russian, which means “the one
around a tree stump.” The Russian name, in this case, focuses on the habitat description, as
do the Russian common names for some Leccinum species like podberezovik (“the one
under birch” or birch bolete) and podosinovik (“the one under an aspen” or aspen bolete).
Understanding the ecological principles that mycologists use to identify mushroom
groups can be helpful in delineating common patterns and differences in the classificatory
systems of mycological scientists and local people.
The identity of a mushroom can be determined with the help of a field guide (cf. Arora
1991; Lincoff 1981). However, many species of mushrooms do look alike, making precise
identification difficult at times without a microscopic analysis of spores or tissue. If in
addition to ethnographic materials a researcher finds it important to obtain “spore prints”
(patterns produced from pressing the underside of a mushroom cap against laboratory
glass or a white sheet of paper), or to dry and preserve specimens collected on site, he or
she should consider completing a course in introductory mycology prior to heading out
into the field. While the fundamentals of collecting mushrooms for identification and
long-term storage may not seem terribly complex—that is, each mushroom should be
gently wrapped in wax paper, a standardized label containing location and habitat description should be filled out and accompany each specimen, and so on—an overview course that
integrates field trips, laboratory and microscopic analyses, and principles of taxonomic
identification will produce a greater ability to make decisions about the techniques most
appropriate for the nature of his or her research.
When the genus and species cannot be determined, the researcher should at least identify a common group (specifying, e.g., whether the mushroom is a polypore that grows on tree
stumps, or a bolete with a porous cap underside, etc.) and note both visual characteristics of
the specimen and its physical surroundings. This way an informed reader can delineate at
least an approximate or a closely related species. Too much of the literature obscures mushroom identity beyond any possibility of identification. Anthropologists are notoriously bad
in this regard, producing scores of ethnographic accounts that do, in one context or another,
mention fungi use by local people, but neglect to provide any identification, either local or
scientific, and offer little in the way of form or habitat description. This impoverishes the
ethnographic portrait of a people, especially in cultures where mushrooms and mushroom
Methods in Ethnomycology
217
harvesting constitute a significant part of livelihoods. By comparison, we do usually expect
authors to say more about local foodways than merely stating that people eat “animals”
and “plants.”
Diet is not the only aspect of the human use of mushrooms and other fungi where
identification is important. For instance, the “dark shamans” of the Guyana highlands, we
are told, eat a diet that includes “certain fungi that are said to aid rapid movement”
(Whitehead 2002), in preparation for the cannibalistic kanaima hunt. Although a number
of psychoactive fungi, predominantly Amanita muscaria and Psilocybe species, are
known to be used in shamanic contexts, acting as agents of the spirit world or inducers of
trancelike states, Whitehead’s description constitutes a rare mention of fungi used as a stimulant by individuals practicing one of the most unique forms of human expressions—violent
ritual predation of other human beings. A possible candidate is Cordyceps sinensis, used
by athletes to avert fatigue and in Chinese medicine to promote various areas of health
(Boesi 2003; Plotkin 2000; Winkler 2008), but without more information this is only
guesswork. Knowing its name would allow us to search for additional practices and
beliefs associated with this mushroom, existing in the Guyana highlands, surrounding
regions, and other places where it is known to grow. Is it always used to enhance athletic
ability or is it also valued as an aphrodisiac, an esculent, or another type of pharmaceutical?
Or does it perhaps carry some mythological qualities that make it a subject of avoidance in
some cultures? Those are the kinds of questions we would have been able to pursue had we
been given a few more clues to decipher the identity of that “certain fungi.”
For a researcher who specifically seeks to advance the field of ethnomycology,
documenting and interpreting common mushroom names and taxonomies used by local
people is an essential task. To date, one of the exemplary efforts carried out to that end is
Aaron Lampman’s (2004) research among the Tzeltal Maya people in Chiapas, Mexico.
A manuscript of Lampman’s doctoral dissertation is available through WorldCat
Dissertation and Thesis Database (see also (Lampman 2007a,b). Lampman’s findings are
integrated in a wider ranging study of the highland Maya ethnomycology (Shepard et al.
2008). In addition to illuminating the subject of the Tzeltal and Tzotzil mushroom classification and use, the study features a combination of field methods that can be employed
effectively in designing similar investigations for other parts of the world. “Freelisting,”
meaning asking each interviewee to recall all items in a particular category, is a simple
and effective means of getting started with documenting local knowledge, in virtually any
domain of life. Shepard et al. (2008) employ this technique in combination with asking
people to make drawings of the mushrooms they have named. In addition to mushroom
types, the researchers solicited freelists of different parts and morphological features of
mushrooms. The drawings were later examined to determine which features of specific
mushrooms the people like to emphasize most. A field guide by David Arora (1991), who
was a co-investigator on this study, was implemented as a general “pictionary,” the mushroom photos from which were shown to people to match local names with the images in
the book. This technique is only partly effective because it is limited to information on
mushrooms found in both the informant’s and the author’s region. Yet it can provide
some insight on the local perception of how similar mushroom varieties differ in form,
color, and habitat between the regions. For each listed mushroom the interviewees were
also asked to provide information on a range of uses. As with most interview data, it is important to note the gender, age, cultural background, and relevant experience of the informant.
The materials collected during the semi-structured interviews were cross-referenced with
the authors’ broader ethnographic observations at the area marketplaces, out on mushroom
gathering trips, and in individual homes.
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Chapter 13 Ethnomycology: Fungi and Mushrooms in Cultural Entanglements
The fieldwork of Marja Härkönen (Härkönen 1998, 2002; Härkönen et al. 1993), a
Finnish researcher who carried out comparative studies on mushroom collecting in
China, Tanzania, and the Karelian regions of Finland and Northwestern Russia, demonstrates how one can design a survey that would draw a broad portrayal of the importance
of mushrooms in a population. Her investigation in Karelia (see below) is aimed largely
at historical questions, while the work in Tanzania and China focuses on contemporary
use. The publication in Tropical Mycology (Härkönen 2002) is especially helpful. Most
of the questions that Härkönen posed to her study participants can be adopted, with some
modifications, if one is to construct an interview protocol to be implemented in a place generally known for its abundant mushroom harvest by local people. These are the questions
(2002: 151– 159).
1 Do you eat mushrooms?
2 Who in your family collects mushrooms?
3 Who taught you about collecting mushrooms?
4 How many different species do you collect for food?
5 Please list the names of mushrooms presented.
6 Which species tastes the best?
7 Is everyone here allowed to collect mushrooms everywhere?
8 When and how often are the mushrooms collected?
9 How do people prepare mushrooms for food?
10 Who in your family prepares mushrooms for food?
11 How highly do you value mushrooms as food compared with other foodstuffs such
as meat, fish or vegetables?
12 Do you preserve mushrooms?
13 Are mushrooms sold in the market places in this region?
14 Do you use mushrooms for purposes other than for food, for instance as medicine?
15 Is there a traditional healer in your village who uses mushrooms? How are they
used?
16 Are there poisonous mushrooms in this region?
17 Have misidentifications occurred, leading to mushroom poisonings?
18 How do you recognize a poisonous mushroom?
19 Do you know any beliefs, stories or fairytales about mushrooms?
Going through a list of pointed questions may prove less rewarding than a more
open-ended dialog. Simply stating the subject of interest, shared by the researcher and the
interviewee, oftentimes generates a flowing narrative. By Härkönen’s own admission,
inquiring as to which member of a household prepares the mushrooms is not particularly
fitting in rural Tanzania, where women do all the cooking. The question of valuing mushrooms over other food sounds “foolish” (Härkönen 2002: 156) in Hunan, where (in contrast
to the role of the main dietary staple during the rainy season in Tanzania) mushrooms are
part of many mixed dishes that include a number of different vegetables and meats. In
some cultural divisions of labor between genders, mushrooms do constitute an anomaly,
being the only crop that is harvested and prepared by men, in a culture where women do
most of the work associated with food and cooking.
The Many Rewards of the Third Hunt
219
Finally, it is useful to consider the framework used by social scientists to study other
single substances. Anthropologist Sidney Mintz, whose renowned study of sugar demonstrates how one commodity can connect the lives of people in the Old and New World
(see Mintz 1986), says this kind of inquiry can be attempted at two levels. One approach,
which we have already discussed in connection with the Lampman (2004), Shepard et al.
(2008), and Härkönen (2002) studies, is to focus fundamentally on the substance: in our
case that would amount to studying how specific mushrooms are found, identified, harvested, processed, and used by a group of people or across cultures. We can also focus on
the substance’s social history and meanings to illuminate broader processes (see Mintz
and Du Bois 2002). A study with documentation of culturally salient species as its primary
goal can be carried out in the form of a structured or semi-structured survey.
THE MANY REWARDS OF THE THIRD HUNT
A recent literature survey provides a record of 1154 fungi consumed in 85 countries (Boa
2004). While the Russian tradition attracts unprecedented attention from English-language
authors, for many societies where mushroom hunting is known to exist (including the
Indigenous peoples of Siberia), its role in the culture and livelihood is poorly understood.
Aside from the extensive body of research on the shamanic use of several psychoactive
species (Furst 1972; Gartz et al. 1996; Guzman 2008; Harner 1973; Letcher 2007; Ott 1993;
Schultes 1940; Wasson 1962, 1968), anthropological research on the diversity of the human
uses of fungi lags behind the far more extensive work of foresters, resource economists,
and rural development specialists. Scholars working in those disciplines produce detailed
analyses of the economic and ecological impact of mushroom gathering (Boa 2004;
Christensen 2008; Montoya 2004; Rammeloo and Walleyn 1993).
One of Gordon Wasson’s works draws a long list of societies in which the origin of
mushrooms is attributed to the striking of lightning bolts (Wasson 1956). Mushroom consumption is forbidden by the Dharma-sûtras (Simoons 1998) and raises concerns for the
Jewish Kashrus laws. Historically and to this day, mushrooms are a luxurious commodity
priced for the privileged in restaurants and retail and, at the same time, a last-resort food
for the rural poor.
The polarity in attitudes toward mushrooms once discovered by Wasson in cultures
occupying different ecological niches can also be found in neighboring populations. For
example, mushroom hunting—with local knowledge of as many as 300 species—is widespread in Mexico and Guatemala, to a lesser extent in Honduras, and is said to be all but
absent in other parts of Central America, despite the continuous presence of tree species
symbiotic with mycorrhizal fungi. In Spain, wild mushroom collection prevails among
the Catalans and Basques (Boa 2004; Schaechter 1997). A great variation in mushroom
use is found in Africa. Mushrooms constitute a very important source of food in Zambia,
providing several months of sustenance for the rural poor (Chileshe 2005; Richards
1939), but no interest in picking—for consumption or trade—is reported for nearby
Angola, characterized by similar woodlands (Boa 2004). In Nigeria, we find opposing
attitudes among the mycophagous Yoruba people (Oso 1975) and the Fulani, who reject
mushrooms as food (Wasson 1954). For Tanzania, Härkönen lists the Chagga, Arusha,
Meru, and Maasai as groups whose members “would not put mushroom in their mouths”
(Härkönen 2002: 151).
In certain cases, mushroom use in a culture is a result of a recent influence, connected
with a specific movement of people or ideas. During the Soviet period, for example,
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Chapter 13 Ethnomycology: Fungi and Mushrooms in Cultural Entanglements
mushroom picking became a common, even beloved, activity among a number of
Indigenous populations in Siberia and the Far East. They adopted this practice from the influences of Russian and Ukrainian settlers in the Soviet North, whose cuisines are famous for
their love of mushrooms (Caldwell 2004; Chamberlain 1983; Schaetcher 1997; Soloukhin
1968; see Fig. 13.1). In the past, each of these groups had their own reasons for avoiding
mushrooms: some associated them with malevolent metaphysical entities, while others
considered them food for the reindeer, not humans. Currently, throughout much of the
post-Soviet North, mushroom hunting is regarded as an inherently local practice, especially
by the younger generations (Yamin-Pasternak 2007; Ziker 2002).
Some of this Russian mushroom fever appears also to have extended westward, over the
Finnish border. When I discuss the subject with Finnish people in the United States,
especially those of the generation born around the time of World War II, I am told that it
is the Russian influence alone that is responsible for the popularity of wild mushrooms in
Finland. However, one of Härkönen’s (1998) studies reveals several trajectories through
which, at different points in history, mushrooms were gaining a stronghold in Finnish foodways. According to Härkönen, it is the use of Lactarius species, which diffused into eastern
Finland through the postwar evacuees from the Finnish territory, that was absorbed by the
Soviet Union. In western Finland, on the other hand, the influence of the adjacent
Sweden created a widespread preference for Boletus edulis and chanterelles which, during
the nineteenth century reign of the French-born King Johan XIV, were increasingly finding
their way onto the Francophile menus of the Swedish social elite. Following World War II,
a number of governmental and independent organizations concerned with food security
Figure 13.1 A Chukchi resident in the village of Nunligran, located on the Russian coast of the Bering Sea,
is preparing a fresh harvest of Leccinum versipelle, known among the Indigenous residents as “mountain
mushroom” and among the Russian settlers as “aspen bolete.” Photograph by Sveta Yamin-Pasternak (2004).
The Many Rewards of the Third Hunt
221
in Finland joined their efforts in promoting wild mushroom harvesting in all parts of the
country, encouraging people to learn how to identify and prepare a wide variety of species.
The contemporary settlement of Russian or Russified populations abroad brings mushroom cookery to countries where in the past it either has not been practiced at all or not on the
scale that we can observe today, giving rise to some of the most unexpected culinary fusions,
commodity flows, and cultural crossroads. In Israel, now that its Jewish immigrants from
the Soviet Union number over a million people, mushroom cookbooks and identification
guides written in Russian and Hebrew languages are finding a new niche in the publishing
market. This, along with the online mushroom hunter forum that covers over 600 relevant
subjects and displays a logo of the Israeli flag with a handsome bolete mushroom protruding
from the center of the Star of David (see Mushrooms of Israel), should serve as powerful
evidence to the skeptics of the fact that mushrooms even can be found in that part of the
world. Anticipating disbelievers among her readership, Russian immigrant Ella Edelshtein
(1983), whose cookbook of 293 recipes focuses mostly on the mushrooms she collects in
Israel, urges local hunters to head out into the woods promptly at the start of the season.
“Wait a week or two,” warns Edelshtein “and you will arrive to a place with no mushrooms
in sight and leave with a wrong assumption: all that [talk about mushrooms] was nothing but
lies or wishful thinking” (Edelshtein 1983: 9).
The overall rise in the global international trade of forest products brings an influx of
commercial buyers and harvesters of wild mushrooms to many rural areas (Fig. 13.2). In
some of those areas mushroom picking has been a long-standing local custom, while in
others it is seen for the first time.
Figure 13.2 In interior Alaska, during a bumper year of the commercially valuable morel mushrooms,
genus Morchella, mushroom buyers depended largely on “circuit pickers,” that is, migrant harvesters of wild forest
products, whereas the majority of local people gave preference to more traditional subsistence activities such as
fishing. Photograph by Sveta Yamin-Pasternak (2005).
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Chapter 13 Ethnomycology: Fungi and Mushrooms in Cultural Entanglements
“Forest products go in and out of market value, but residents continue to appreciate them
as landscape features because of their local, subsistence uses,” writes Anna Tsing (2005:
184) about the dynamics of foraging in the Meratus Mountains of Borneo. Other studies
tell a different story. In the town of Ozumba, central Mexico, the increasing external
demand for local wild mushrooms appears to be fostering the preservation and even expansion of knowledge among local people, who collect mushrooms for both the marketplace
and for home, still valuing the species that do not have commercial value. Yet in another
town surveyed during the same study, local interest in mushrooms has all but disappeared,
and most collecting is done for commercial purposes by pickers coming from outside the
region (Pérez-Moreno et al. 2008).
Although in recent years, largely in response to a growing preoccupation with natural
foods, we are seeing an expanding variety of wild mushrooms marketed in western countries,
cultivated mushrooms continue to dominate the industry. Mushroom cultivation is seen by
many as an opportunity to create a local enterprise which requires relatively minor infrastructure and is capable of recycling certain types of agricultural and industrial waste, utilized as
a mycelium substrate. Hence we are seeing development agencies together with private
investors introducing mushroom farming to rural communities throughout the world. Similar to the wild commercial harvest coming to areas where mushroom collecting may or
may not have been practiced before, mushroom cultivation is finding its way to places in
Australia, previously unfamiliar to mycophagy (Hirst 2008) with the exception of some
uses by Aborigines (Lepp, undated; Trappe 2008), as well as to villages in Siberia, southern
Africa, China, Japan, and Thailand, known for their mushroom loving cuisines.
While many mushroom growers operate on relatively small scale, selling through local
vendors and specialty retail, it is typically large operations that supply the most common
supermarket varieties like the white button, crimini, and Portobello mushrooms (all three
belong to the species Agaricus bisporus, each representing a different stage of growth).
Unfortunately for mushroom growers, many varieties considered choice in world cuisines
(such as boletus, matsutake, chanterelle, truffles, among others), are mycorrhizal, growing
symbiotically with the roots of particular plants, thereby making cultivation difficult or
impossible. Yet we do find examples where the entire habitats are managed, either via
local practices or national policies, with a goal of fostering the proliferation of these mushrooms. In preindustrial Japan, firewood collecting and other human activities promoted the
establishment of pine groves rich in matsutake. With other types of fuel taking the place of
the firewood, these favorable disturbance activities became less consistent, causing a decline
in matsutake production (Saito and Mitsumata 2008). Anthropologists Anna Tsing and
Shiho Satsuka are both members of the Matsutake World Research and examine the key
differences in forest management approaches in the US and Japan. Whereas the US regulations often prohibit or restrict mushroom harvesting, viewing it as comparable to timber
exploitation bans in protected wildernesses, the Japanese regard their matsutake-producing
forests as mass scale nature orchards, proper management of which provides a nurturing
habitat for one of Japan’s most cherished mushrooms (Tsing and Satsuka 2008).
MUSHROOMS IN ART AND MATERIAL CULTURE
Mushrooms are featured in a number of art traditions around the world. The Registry of
Mushrooms in Works of Art (http://www.mykoweb.com/art-registry/index.html; cited in
Schaetcher 2009) includes over 800 European artworks, from the 1300s to contemporary
times. Among non-Western examples are the ancient mushroom stone sculptures of
Mushrooms in Art and Material Culture
223
Mesoamerica (see Mayer 1977; Wasson 1980) and the Pegtymel petroglyphs in Russia’s
Eastern Artic (Dikov 1999 [1971]), as well as Japanese Netsuke figurines from various
time periods (Symmes 1995). The characters accompanying these depictions include figures
of deities, humans, and animals, each offering some revelations while also raising questions
about the role of mushrooms (or particular mushroom species) in the societies that created
these objects. A triptych block print by Utagawa Kunisada, the famous Japanese artist
from the Edo epoch, shows a group of servants collecting mushrooms for their masters
having a picnic at the bottom of the hill (Fig. 13.3).
The connection between mushrooms and prosperity that exists in Japan today—a gift
baskets of matsutake mushrooms carefully laid atop of bank notes (Mogu Mogu 2007) is
one of its iconic representations—appears to be a long-standing association. Japanese
admiration for mushrooms also becomes apparent in several literary traditions, one of the
most prominent being haiku poetry. The two collections that have been examined for the
subject feature over 300 verses dedicated to the physical form, the aroma, and the taste
of different mushrooms, as well as the pleasure of the activity of gathering (Blyth 1973).
By contrast, the Tokugawa period books called kinpu—“fungi records” aimed to present
mushrooms as a natural wonder, taking more of a scientific rather than a poetic stance.
The kinpu texts spread over the course of the nineteenth century and range “from albums
in which amateur enthusiasts drew and wrote about mushrooms to careful and extensive
descriptions by scholars” (Imazeki and Wasson 1973). In most kinpu, each mushroom
description is accompanied by a wood block print that illustrates the species, often at different angles.
Figure 13.3
Fragment of a block print
by Utagawa Kunisada (1786– 1865),
depicting mushroom collectors. Courtesy
of the Wasson Collection, Harvard
University. (See color insert.)
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Chapter 13 Ethnomycology: Fungi and Mushrooms in Cultural Entanglements
Examples of artful carrying vessels for mushrooms or mushroom products can be found
in contemporary shopper catalogues, as well as in museum collections. The Smithsonian
Museum of Natural History holds a number of fungal ash boxes collected in western
Alaska around 1880 (see Nelson 1983 [1899]). Made of ivory, bentwood, and baleen and
adorned with feathers, zoomorphic designs, and intricate carving patterns, these “snuffboxes” were intended to hold and transport the ash of polypore Phellinus igniarius, brought
into this treeless tundra area from regions further inland (Blanchette 2001; Blanchette et al.
2002). The distances traveled to obtain it, and the fine workmanship of the snuffboxes, indicate that this substance was highly valued. Ash of Phellinus igniarius is mixed with chewing
tobacco to enhance its flavor and effect. It is still popular in western Alaska, especially
among the Indigenous elders.
Besides being an artwork subject, mushrooms can also function as art supplies.
Fiber artists, especially weavers, value the broad spectrum of warm earthly hues that can
be derived from dyeing wool with sulfur tufts, jack-o-lanterns, several species of
Dermocybe, and other mushrooms. In the United States, this medium was popularized by
Miriam Rice (1980, 2008; see also International Mushroom Dye Institute: http://www.
mushroomsforcolor.com) who began using locally harvested mushrooms for color while
teaching art classes in Mendocino, California. Rice’s successive tryouts with these innovative media are documented in the book Mushrooms for Color (1980) which, shortly after its
publication, became an international hit among weavers in North America, Australia, and
Europe. Weavers in Scandinavian countries were eager to incorporate this method of
dyeing wools into Nordic designs, commonly used for sweaters and outer garments.
ALL IN ONE: MEDICINE, POISON, AND FOOD
Andy Letcher, the author of the book Shroom, objects to the term “mycophobia,” coined by
the Wassons, claiming that we should not describe as a “phobia” the inclination to avoid
potentially dangerous behavior (Letcher 2007). True, people can and do get hurt from the
effects of reckless mushroom consumption, as they do from reckless driving, downhill
skiing, and crossing the street on the red light. However, few people would suggest it is
rational never to leave home in order to avoid traffic accidents.
Consider Amanita muscaria, the fly agaric, whose bright red cap adorned with white
polka dots makes it arguably one of the most recognizable members of the Third
Kingdom (see Fig. 13.4).
Simply running its name, scientific or common, through an internet search engine will
drown a curious browser in theories, testimonies, and conspiracies surrounding the social
standing of this mushroom and its medicinal, visual, nutritional, and psychoactive properties. Delving into each of these aspects paints a provocative example of a mushroom
that is used as a revered strength enhancer and shaman’s tool among the Indigenous
peoples of Siberia (Saar 1991; Wasson 1968), a recreational intoxicant of the counterculture movement in Western countries on both sides of the Atlantic (Letcher 2007), and a delicious edible in parts of Japan (Rubel and Arora 2008; Wasson 1973). The majority of
Ukrainians, Russians, and Byelorussians—the peoples said to be famous for their knowledge of different mushroom properties—fearfully reject Amanita muscaria as a food,
claiming that ingesting it internally can be deadly, although they do apply a fly agaric infusion externally as a remedy for ailing bone joints, skin, and eyes (Moskalenko 1987;
Pietkiewicz 1938). These are just a few of the many documented uses and cultural association of this mushroom.
All in One: Medicine, Poison, and Food
225
Figure 13.4 Although Amanita muscaria is known as a psychoactive mushroom, this batch, collected during an
annual Northern California Mendocino Coast Foray, was cooked for dinner following a simple detoxification
procedure (see Rubel and Arora 2008). Photograph by Sveta Yamin-Pasternak (2008). (See color insert.)
When people first start learning about mushrooms, they are often all too eager to
place each one into a set category. They want to know whether is it edible, poisonous, medicinal, or hallucinogenic. Sometimes, as in the case of Amanita phalloides, we can say with
certainty that this mushroom is not edible, as ingesting it in any form causes quick and
fatal damage to the liver and kidneys. Most of the time, however, edibility is not a quality
that is inherent in a species, but one defined by cookery, methods of processing and preservation, ways and quantities of ingestion, as well as the symbolic associations carried in a
culture. A boiling method used to prepare Amanita muscaria in the Nagano prefecture of
Japan helps rid the mushroom’s flesh of its toxins, which are completely water soluble
(Rubel and Arora 2008). Yet, the mushroom loving Slavs, whose cookery prescribes the
boiling step as part of virtually any mushroom preparation, will not consider doing
the same with the fly agaric, as its potential harm is believed to be unavoidable and omnipresent. Fly agaric imagery inhabits the landscapes of many Russian folk tales, where it
is associated with the underworld, danger, and death.
The distinction we draw between toxic, psychoactive, medicinal, or hallucinogenic
mushrooms is not absolute either. The definition here largely depends on the intention of
the user. In a number of Indigenous cultures, Amanita muscaria and several Psilocybe
species are used by healers and visionaries, who consider these mushrooms to be the
time-tested, revered sources of spiritual power, intended to be consumed by specialized
members of the society. Gordon Wasson’s book Soma furnishes an extensive list of bibliographic entries, mostly accompanied by excerpts from the original texts, of early explorers
and observers documenting the use of A. muscaria among the Indigenous peoples of Siberia
and the Russian Far East. Mexican scholar Guston Guzman (2008), recognized as one of
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Chapter 13 Ethnomycology: Fungi and Mushrooms in Cultural Entanglements
world’s foremost authorities on the genus Psilocybe, lists 14 principal species important to at
least seven Indigenous groups in Mexico, of which Mazatecs, Mixes, and Nahuatles exhibit
the greatest diversity of species used in ritual ceremonies. In such a context, it would probably be more appropriate to call these mushrooms psychoactive, rather than toxic or hallucinogenic. On the other hand, the criminal codes in the majority of Western states clearly
consider the consciousness-altering capabilities of Psilocybe harmful and dangerous, and
are therefore more likely to regard its psychoactive qualities as poisonous or toxic. Since
they were initially documented in the 1960s, psychoactive mushrooms have been a popular
item at festival events, where they are usually called hallucinogenic, psychedelic, or simply
“magic” (Letcher 2007). Yet, despite fact that in Western cultures they are largely associated
with recreational drugs, many people claim that ingesting psychoactive mushrooms
enhances their spiritual wellbeing and understanding of the world around them, and even
inspires a better behavior (Griffith and Richards 2008).
Calling a mushroom “medicinal” can also allude to several meanings. Many kinds of
mushrooms, mushrooms extracts, and mushroom infusions are utilized in medical systems
around the world (Hobbs 1986; Stamets 2005; see Moerman 1998 for Native American
uses). Some are prescribed for specific afflictions; others are considered to be general boosters for the nervous system, immunity, or metabolism. Among the internationally marketed
species, renowned for their healthful qualities are Grifola frondosa (common names “maitake” and “hen of the woods”; see Fig. 13.5), (Chinese “ling zhi,” Japanese “reishi”), and
Cordyceps sinensis (usually called “cordyceps” in the English vernacular); these are just a
few of the myriad medicinal fungi used by healers.
Figure 13.5 While the retail price of this 6000 mg (0.21 ounce) bottle of Grifola frondosa extract for the
author’s dog, recommended by a holistic veterinarian as an immune system booster to assist the dog’s struggle
with bone cancer, averages around US$80, the home-pickled batch of the same mushroom (also known as Maitake
and Hen of the Woods) was freely available to pick in a forest. In the cookery of Russian and other Slavic cultures
pickled mushrooms are ingested as a “chaser” with a shot of hard liquor. Photograph by Sveta Yamin-Pasternak
(2009). (See color insert.)
References
227
In the healing practices that utilize psychoactive mushrooms, it is usually not the
patient but the healer who ingests the mushrooms, in order to draw knowledge of possible
causes and cures from the experience spawned from the reaction. It should be noted
that the use of psychoactive mushrooms or other substances is not a universal means to
achieve the condition known as the shamanic state of consciousness (Harner 1980), which
can also be attained through a combination of other techniques, like drumming, chanting,
specific motion, or concentration (Siikala 1978; Siikala and Hoppal 1992). Lastly, mushroom medicine can be administered not only to heal humans or other creatures, but also
to improve the health of whole ecosystems. This is the central idea behind the work of
Paul Stamets (2005), whose monumental book Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can
Help Save the World introduces us to the techniques of “mycofiltration” and “mycoremediation,” which involve enriching a habitat with specific fungi that are capable of absorbing
environmental pollutants in order to promote the restoration of healthy soils in contaminated
or damaged forests.
As we have seen from the example of Amanita muscaria and its status among the
Russians, a culture that generally celebrates itself as mycophilic may be unjustly (from an
outsider’s point of view) discriminatory toward a specific mushroom. It may also accord a
rather low grade to the mushrooms considered choice by others. For instance, morel mushrooms, which are priced exuberantly in the high-end restaurants and markets of the United
States, Switzerland, and France, are rated in the lowest category by the Russians, whose
beloved Boletus edulis are, in turn, shunned by the mycophiles of Mexico (Elizondo
1991) and Japan (Imazeki 1993). “A meal of wild mushrooms is a delicacy in
Switzerland or the United States but a necessity in Malawi,” points out Eric Boa (2004:
51). This may well be true, but in acknowledging that, we should remember that foods
harvested as a necessity can be also valued as delicacies in the same culture.
CONCLUSION
This chapter discusses a range of subjects, and how one can learn more about them by asking
what specific cultures or human groups think about mushrooms and which, how, and for
what purpose different species are used. It provides an overview of some methodological
suggestions for tackling these questions. For a researcher working in a place where mushroom uses are abundant, documentation of local knowledge may become a major effort.
Yet those who encounter absence of use should not walk away without asking why that is
so. The culture of a people who appear not to use mushrooms probably features an aspect
of history or worldview capable of shedding light on an aspect of ethnomycology. One
just has to ask the questions.
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Chapter
14
Ethnoecological Approaches to
Integrating Theory and Method
in Ethnomedical Research
NINA L. ETKIN
Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai’i, Honolulu, HI, (Nina Etkin passed away on 27 January
2008)
TAMARA TICKTIN
Department of Botany, University of Hawai’i, Honolulu, HI
HEATHER L. MCMILLEN
Health and Habitat Program, People and Plants International, Inc., Essex Junction, VT
INTRODUCTION
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THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
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ETHNOGRAPHY IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL TRADITIONS
233
STUDY PARTICIPANTS
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PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION
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INTERVIEWS AND QUESTIONNAIRES
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MARKET SURVEYS
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IDENTIFICATION OF BOTANICAL SPECIES AND ETHNOSPECIES
237
COMBINING ETHNOGRAPHIC AND ECOLOGICAL APPROACHES
238
EXAMINING IF AND HOW ECOLOGICAL FACTORS INFLUENCE PLANT
COLLECTION AND PHYTOCHEMISTY
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IDENTIFYING ECOLOGICAL FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE MEDICINAL PLANT
COLLECTION
238
COMPLEMENTING FIELD OBSERVATIONS WITH MANIPULATIVE EXPERIMENTS
239
DISTINGUISHING ENVIRONMENTAL FROM GENETIC INFLUENCES
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Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Chapter 14 Ethnoecological Approaches Ethnomedical Research
IDENTIFYING OPTIMAL CONDITIONS FOR MEDICINAL PLANT CULTIVATION
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IDENTIFYING THE ECOLOGICAL IMPACTS OF MEDICINAL PLANT HARVEST
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UNDERSTANDING MEDICINAL PLANT HARVESTS AS LOCAL MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
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ASSESSING VARIATION IN MEDICINAL PLANT HARVEST PRACTICES
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EXPERIMENTAL APPROACHES TO ASSESSING MEDICINAL PLANT HARVEST
IMPACTS
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OBSERVATIONAL APPROACHES TO ASSESSING MEDICINAL PLANT HARVEST
IMPACTS
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PARTICIPATORY ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH METHODS
245
REFERENCES
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INTRODUCTION
This chapter uses an integrated biocultural perspective, which reflects an understanding that
local knowledge emerges from and undergirds the relations among people, plants, other
species, material cultures, ideologies, and physical environments. For ethnobiology, ethnopharmacology, and related fields, integrated approaches drive more powerful analyses than
those studies that offer little more than catalogues of plants and their uses (Etkin 1993; Etkin
and Elisabetsky 2005; Etkin and Ticktin 2005, 2009). More sophisticated research designs
emphasize overlapping contexts of plant and animal use (Etkin and Ross 1997). The
interpretation, utility, and conservation of plants are influenced not only by knowledge of
daily activity patterns, which can be learned relatively quickly, but also by their extension
into weeks, months, seasons, and years.
Ethnobiological knowledge varies among and within populations. Integrated research
strategies explore those ranges of variation and test assumptions about who holds knowledge
and how knowledge is transmitted. Research should be designed to explore actual harvest
and management practices for plants and animals and not just descriptions of such practices,
since they are not necessarily parallel. Comprehensive perspectives question and test the
merits of normative models of people– plant and people – animal interactions, such as consensus analysis (Moerman 2007), in which consistent patterns of use within and across cultures are taken as good predictors that those species can be “corroborated” bioscientifically.
Consensus can be artificially forced, and masks the natural heterogeneity of human circumstances. Traditional uses emerge from the internal logic of local paradigms and do not need
the imprimatur of bioscience.
Researchers must recognize that local knowledge and use of ethnomedicines are
embedded in larger systems and are shaped by many factors, including political – economic
influences, disease experience, and local explanatory models for disease. Demand for ethnomedicines is affected by pandemics such as HIV/AIDS, drug resistant malaria, and limited
access to clean water, as well as more culturally specific concepts such as children’s diseases
and witchcraft. Research on ethnomedicines must also include these dimensions.
Worldwide, about 10– 18% of native plant species are used medicinally (Schippman et al.
2002). People make deliberate choices in harvesting and managing specific types for
medicinal use.
Ethnography in Anthropological Traditions
233
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
A biocultural perspective provides the overarching framework for ethnomedical and ethnoecological research. Biocultural research integrates bioscientific material (e.g., on disease,
evolution, ecology) with interpretive and descriptive contributions from ethnography to
examine people and plants on a range of scales: from the species level and particular ethnographic field sites to whole ecosystems including the human populations within them.
Biocultural research may investigate the co-evolution of biological and cultural diversity, the influence of human – environment interactions on human health, and how these
issues relate to resource management, among other topics. Johns (1996) examined the biocultural evolution of human dietary behavior and the origins of medicine and hypothesized
that there are both biological and cultural components in humans’ adaptive responses to the
ingestion of plant chemicals. He describes how the cultural evolution of the Aymara people
and the evolution of the potato in the Andes are intimately related and have co-evolved
through the processes of human selection for increased flavor and decreased toxicity in
Solanum species. Etkin’s (2006) treatment of the overlapping context of foods and medicines throughout human biological and social evolution uses specific examples of plants,
animals, and cuisines to advance our understanding of the cultural constructions and
biochemical potential of ingested biological material.
ETHNOGRAPHY IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL TRADITIONS
Outlined here is a foundation for field research that draws on the anthropological tradition of
ethnography. While ethnography commonly is misconstrued as simply fieldwork, a foundational component in the development of classical ethnography was to describe what was
learned and observed deductively, that is, with reference to a priori anthropological theories.
Several primary and accessory methods are “triangulated”: discrete techniques, not limited
to three, are applied in sequence or concurrently to create an organic inquiry in which the
same botanical domain (medicine identification, preparation, harvest methods) is explored
through different formats. This tests data reliability and validity by assessing whether the
researcher “got it right”—that is, elicited the same information—not whether study participants change responses or forget.
A spaced sequence of rapid appraisals might capture some seasonal, social, and ecological variation. Botanists and others who are not interested in in-depth ethnography can take
advantage of rapid assessment, keeping in mind these limitations and other characteristics
(Trotter and Schensul 1998):
†
†
†
†
†
The study sample size is small.
The study is narrowly bounded, for example, to one domain of use, or to a small
number of plants.
The research focuses on consensus and other broad patterns, rather than on intracultural complexity, to determine commonly used plants, sources, and salient ecological
parameters.
Goals are problem oriented to contribute to programs or policies, for example, government conservation efforts.
Sector sampling—for example, household heads, farm owners, forest managers—
does not plumb the range and scale of community heterogeneity.
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Chapter 14 Ethnoecological Approaches Ethnomedical Research
Study Participants
Issues of intellectual property rights, benefit sharing, and informed consent have been
increasingly clarified and codified by researchers and their institutions, governments,
Indigenous groups, and international entities (Etkin in press; Sampath et al. in press;
Sillitoe 2006). Even small communities that appear to be homogeneous may house significant asymmetries in access to resources, including knowledge and practices related to plants.
Many research designs replicate biomedical and Western paradigms that privilege specialists
(e.g., healers). In the case of ethnomedicines, targeting healers overlooks health action that
begins with home- or self-care and ranges through levels and types of expertise, and may
involve community-wide activities. Research from Tanzania shows that rural farmers,
mothers, medicinal plant vendors, and commercial harvesters can be as knowledgeable
(or more so) than specialist healers about popularly sold medicinal plants. The inclusion
of only healers would have missed important plants, harvesting techniques, and medicinal
plant habitats (McMillen 2008). The same holds true for other use domains for which
specialists, titled or not, represent only part of the range of knowledge and practice of the
community. Because human communities are not “human laboratories,” random and
other “objective” samples might not be meaningful for any data collection beyond superficial
matters. Researchers who are familiar with the community with which they work should be
able to select samples that represent the ranges of ethnicity, language, occupation, religion,
education, and so on. Researchers should also describe whose knowledge they are discussing. Knowledge of plants and animals varies by gender (Pfeiffer and Butz 2005), age (Müller
et al. 2009), training and livelihood (Ghimire et al. 2004; Joyal 1996), wealth, and so on. It is
important to explain how participants were identified and how widely the particular knowledge is distributed. Esoteric knowledge and plant or animal harvesting practices of just one
individual should not be represented as an entire community’s shared knowledge system or
resource management strategies. A minimum of three independent observations for each
behavior or knowledge claim has been used as a standard for describing shared knowledge
that is part of a local ecological knowledge system (Davis and Wagner 2003; Johns et al.
1990; McMillen 2008).
Participant Observation
Researchers wishing to understand ethnomedical practices should enter a community slowly,
especially as concerns about biopiracy cast us in shadow throughout much of the world. A
short-spaced sequence of several preliminary visits provides opportunities to explain
research goals in more detail and to organize the logistics of establishing residence in the
community. Participant observation begins on the first day that the researcher contacts the
community and continues for the duration of the study (Bernard 2006). Rapid appraisal
offers fewer possibilities to observe local ecology and community life, but participant observation still is an important, ongoing component of that approach.
Interviews and Questionnaires
It may not be obvious how medicines work from a local perspective, but this can be better
understood through in-depth ethnographic research.
Ethnography in Anthropological Traditions
235
Efficacy is brought about in a context of belief and expectation and through social communication
and interaction. It has a processual nature and is initiated by preparatory activities like prescribing,
buying, collecting, and preparing the medicine. Therefore, the therapeutic effect of a medicine
cannot be reduced to its chemical substance. Its “total drug effect” depends also on nonchemical
attributes of the drug such as its color, name, and provenance; on properties of the recipient and
prescriber; and on the situations in which the medicine is delivered and consumed.
(van der Geest et al. 1996: 167)
For example, among the Iroquois, plants with hook-like structures that are sticky have
“ensnaring/capturing qualities” and are used to cure cold sores, venereal diseases, and diarrhea—all of which are perceived as running or escaping things. Plants with these qualities
are also seen as effective for returning an unfaithful lover and enticing or “hooking”
buyers (Moerman 2007).
Healers understand their actions to affect the efficacy of the medicines they use. In many
places the adherence to harvesting protocols is paramount. If these are not followed by the
harvester, the medicine is not expected to work because it will not have the power of the
healer or his/her associated spirits (McMillen 2008). In Nigeria, Yoruba healers sing to
their medicines to make them effective. In Burundi, healers claim that their personal
power—not a power inherent in the plants—makes the medicines work (van der Geest
et al. 1996). A plant’s power to heal is also indicated by its overall appearance, specifically
its size and vigor, as well as its organoleptic qualities (Etkin 2006; Ghimire et al. 2004;
Gollin 2004; McMillen 2008; Shepard 2004). Often, stronger, more pungent tastes and
smells are preferred, which can also indicate biochemical qualities.
Like disease, therapeutics is a process, the early phases of which might be directed at
determining etiology or expelling disease agents via emesis, sweating, or sneezing (Etkin
1988). Through cultural domain analysis researchers seek to understand how the study participants perceive groups of entities that appear to be related: plants, symptom categories,
and medicinal plant habitats.
Higher, specialized levels of medicinal plant knowledge have been demonstrated in
northwestern Nepal with healers who have more knowledge than commercial collectors
(Ghimire et al. 2004), and in Marrakech, Morocco where vendors with more years of experience knew more than those with fewer years of experience (Martin et al. 2007). Higher levels
of medicinal plant knowledge have also been associated with increased age, for example in
Brazil (Begossi et al. 2002; Monteiro et al. 2006) and Tanzania (Luoga et al. 2000a). Lower
levels of formal education have been correlated in Brazil and elsewhere with higher levels
of medicinal plant knowledge (Voeks and Leony 2004).
In some contexts, women hold higher levels of plant knowledge (Begossi et al. 2002;
Monteiro et al. 2006; Voeks and Leony 2004), while in others men hold more (Joyal
1996; Luoga et al. 2000a). More specifically, gender also influences plant knowledge
based on habitat type (Hanazaki et al. 2006; Kyoshabire 1998), use of plant (Luoga et al.
2000b), and life form (Caniago and Siebert 1998; Lewis and Elvin-Lewis 1990).
Ethnicity and length of contact in a given environment are also linked to people’s relationships with specific plant habitats and to local ecological knowledge. Exploring and verifying
how knowledge differs among social groups can help in assessing locally innovated techniques in resource management and conservation planning (Ticktin and Johns 2002),
especially as concerned with ethnomedicines, which are typically considered the purview
of elders and traditional healers.
For ethnobiological and ethnomedical research, discourse methods can be applied to
conversations that occur during sourcing plants in markets or forests, and preparing species
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Chapter 14 Ethnoecological Approaches Ethnomedical Research
for use. Narrative analysis is another method used by ethnographers of language: researchers
listen to individuals tell, sing, or act out a story. This overlaps with oral history. Text analysis
works with written accounts: school children’s essays; newspapers; and novels, letters, and
dictionaries that represent Indigenous literatures. Several group methods are distinguished
by their structure, context, and goals (Bernard 2006). At least one community interview
(CI) is convened very early in the study as researchers introduce themselves, or are introduced, and describe general research goals. In view of the large audience, the venue is typically a public site such as a town square, church, or school. The CI is structured by what the
researcher wants to convey, and is flexible to permit community input. Researchers should be
clear about their interests and can describe their own personal experiences that have led to the
questions they are pursuing. Researchers should also be forthcoming about their own biases
and stakes in the project. In attendance are all or a large representation of the community; the
format is typically question-and-answer.
After gaining acceptance from the community, researchers may convene focus groups to
explore particular topics. A challenge is to assure the group that there are no wrong answers
and that, while consensus may emerge, a heterogeneity of views is welcome. Factorial design
might be appropriate: a group of eight would represent two genders, two ethnic groups, two
occupations, and two residential sites.
Natural site interviews might be scheduled or spontaneous, as the researcher encounters
people grouped for crop harvest or healing, hunting, dyeing cloth, or weaving baskets.
Depending on the community size, several groups of farmers, healers, hunters, dyers, and
weavers, and so on. might be organized, as group demographics and size impact the
social dynamic.
A standard ethnobiological quantification gauges the local significance of a plant or
animal, of a conservation measure, or a collection strategy based on the fraction of participants who use the plant or animal, effect conservation in that way, and collect in that manner.
Significance is defined by the researcher, taking into account local parameters. Beyond that,
detailed information allows the compilation of other indices. Commonly used species can be
ranked on a Saliency Index. The Use Value of a species is calculated from the overall utility
of a plant based on how respondents designate all plants and their applications along a
transect or in a single site.
Preference Ranking (PR) assigns a mean numerical value to each plant based on how
significant respondents consider that species to be as revealed by requesting respondents
to order species using criteria such as abundance, apparency, or flavor. Direct Matrix
Ranking (DM) compounds PR by considering two or more criteria. Using DM, the
researcher can set a standard that will serve cross-cultural comparisons. That standard
more realistically represents the selection of plants in real-life circumstances.
Market Surveys
For ethnomedical research designed to inform conservation and management, ethnomedicines that invariably appear in market settings and enjoy a high volume trade deserve special
consideration. Focusing on the most popularly sold medicinal plants and animals allows the
exploration of which organisms and habitats may be at risk from overharvest, and how
knowledge and practices related to those organisms may affect their ecological status.
However, the identification and evaluation of such species is complex, due to the informal,
heterogeneous, and clandestine nature of the medicinal plant trade.
Ethnography in Anthropological Traditions
237
Economic and commercial data can be derived by following guidelines for market surveys and inventories (Cunningham 2001; Martin 1995; Trager 1995). These should include
taking stock of what types of vendors are present and where, and conducting semi-structured
interviews with vendors to learn some of the most salient plants and/or animals and to
understand the market chain and structure.
Working in Tanzania, McMillen (2008) interacted with most vendors for at least
four months before she felt comfortable asking to inventory their stocks. (She had
known some of the vendors for years.) She wanted to understand the context of the
lists the inventories would generate, and more importantly, she wanted to ensure that the
vendors understood the goals of her research, which did not include bioprospecting—
something that needed to be clarified. She also wanted to ensure vendors were confident that sharing information with her would not put their livelihoods or knowledge
at risk. She progressed slowly and transparently and never asked about the uses of
the plants, which put people at ease and made them more interested in fully
participating.
Not all studies can afford four months of groundwork before conducting complete
inventories of vendors’ stocks. An acceptable compromise may be to establish rapport
and ask vendors about the most important plants instead. The plants that vendors identify
as most important are often those that are actually most apparent in their stocks
(McMillen 2008; Williams 2007). In fact, Williams (2007) found that the more traders
that sell a plant, the more likely they are to cite it as popular.
Identification of Botanical Species and Ethnospecies
Researchers should accompany commercial harvesters, vendors, and healers as they collect
medicinal plants. Cunningham (2001: 19) recommends cross-checking names with different
people and comparing the results from different methods. He describes three methods: (1)
the “artifact/interview” technique, where a particular item or artifact, or in our case medicine, is the focus of the interview and participants are asked the names of the materials
used to make that item; (2) the “inventory/interview” where particular plant specimens
are the foci of interviews with participants who are asked their names and uses; and (3)
the “walk in the woods” approach, where participants are asked the names and/or uses of
specific whole plants in the field that have been identified by “key helpers” (Cunningham
2001: 19).
To verify ethnospecies – botanical species names, McMillen (2008) prepared voucher
specimens and had a minimum of four different individuals from at least two different
locales identify the plants by ethnospecies. These four individuals were either present at
the time of collection of the voucher specimen or they were shown a prepared voucher
specimen and asked about all the names that applied to it. The species’ scientific names
were verified at the National Herbarium of Tanzania (NHT) where vouchers were deposited.
This helped to reconcile the taxonomic name when, for example, she suspected that multiple
ethnospecies referred to the same botanical species or when one ethnospecies referred
to multiple botanical species. In South Africa, Cunningham (2001) recorded nine Zulu
names for the medicinal plant species Curtisia dentata. In the Afromontane forest in
Uganda, he also encountered multiple cases in which a single local name applies to multiple
botanical species, some of which were rare and some of which were widespread
(Cunningham 2001).
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COMBINING ETHNOGRAPHIC AND ECOLOGICAL APPROACHES
Examining if and How Ecological Factors Influence Plant
Collection and Phytochemisty
The extensive literature on the botany and chemistry of phytomedicines includes a growing
corpus of research on the relationships between environment and the presence or absence of
medicinal plants (McCune and Johns 2002; Stepp and Moerman 2001; Voeks 1996). There
is still a paucity of information on how/which ecological factors influence decisions about
where and when to collect individual medicinal plants or plant parts, and what the implications of these decisions are (for an example, see McCune and Johns 2007). How and
why do people make decisions about where and when to collect medicinal plants? How
does medicinal plant phytochemistry, thus pharmacologic potential, vary with ecological
conditions? How might anthropogenic landscape-level ecological changes alter the pharmacologic potential of plants? What are the optimal conditions for cultivation? How do wild
harvested and cultivated medicinal plants compare?
Identifying Ecological Factors that Influence Medicinal
Plant Collection
Genetic variation can account for a large proportion of phytochemical variation among
and within individual plants, populations, and environments. This might be especially
true for medicinal plants that have been selected by diverse cultures. However, some of
the secondary chemical components, or combination of components, that are responsible
for pharmacologic activity vary significantly over space and time in response to environmental factors. Ecological factors such as light and nutrient availability, competition, and
the intensity of herbivory can influence the production of phytochemicals (Fiebert and
Langheim 1988; Hoft et al. 1996; McCune and Johns 2007; Osier and Lindroth 2001;
Salmore and Hunter 2001). In some species, the production of defense chemicals
such as alkaloids, many of which have medicinal value, are induced by insect herbivory
(Fordyce 2001; Salmore and Hunter 2001). The impact of insect herbivory, in turn, can
be influenced by solar radiation (Fiebert and Langheim 1988), moon phase, surrounding
vegetation, and other factors. In addition, the production of phytochemicals can vary over
seasons, times of day, and phases of the plant life cycle (Bennet et al. 1990; Jarzonmoski
et al. 2000; Maldonado et al. 2008). Similarly, phytochemical variation can be due to
environment– genotype interactions (Osier and Lindroth 2001); environmental
factors can also trigger the expression of certain genes. Thus, plant chemistry and pharmacologic potential can vary seasonally and among populations occurring in different
environments and microenvironments, and therefore collectors often use ecological
and environmental cues when making decisions on how, when, and where to harvest
medicinal plants.
However, these decisions can also be strongly influenced by socioeconomic factors.
Decisions to collect particular species from certain environments instead of from others
can especially be influenced by land tenure and ease of access. The most utilized habitats
are not necessarily the most preferred ones. The preferred time to harvest may not be the
same time as most harvesting occurs if it conflicts with the time when crops need to be
harvested. Time periods such as the shifting month of Ramadan in Islamic cultures, when
harvesters are fasting, may mean that little harvesting occurs, even though it falls during
Combining Ethnographic and Ecological Approaches
239
an optimum month for harvest. More harvesting may occur when crops fail because of the
need to supplement livelihood strategies.
While the collection of many species is specific for time of year (e.g., spring, dry
season), life-cycle phase (e.g., before flowering), or environmental conditions (e.g., northfacing slopes, beneath trees, high altitude), other guidelines for harvesting may be less
obvious due to the guarded nature of ethnomedical knowledge. In Tanzania, McMillen
learned of a healer who told her patient to return once he had found the feather of a certain
bird; only then would she provide his medicine. When questioned as to what role the feather
played in the composition of the medicine, the healer smiled and explained that although the
medicine is purely plant based, that bird migrates at the same time as the plant is flowering.
The feather brought by the patient reminded the healer to harvest the plant she needed at the
appropriate time. By asking for the feather, she both protected her specialized knowledge
and reminded herself of what she needed to harvest for that patient whom she had seen a
month earlier.
Simple ecological field methods can be carried out to identify and document ecological
or environmental factors that vary between preferred versus non-preferred places or times to
collect medicinal plants, and to test their effects. To assess whether ecological differences are
linked to preferred and non-preferred collection sites/times, several factors should be quantified. If the active constituents of a species are thought to play a role in plant defense against
insect herbivory, the intensity of insect herbivory can be measured in a set of preferred versus
non-preferred populations. This can be done very simply, for example, by using a grid to
measure leaf area eaten by insects as a percentage of total leaf area. Other ecological factors
that can be quantified include: canopy cover or light transmission, soil nutrient levels and
moisture, temperature, rainfall, and composition and density of surrounding vegetation.
Canopy cover is an indicator of light availability and can be measured with a densitometer
or camera with a hemispherical lens. Alternatively, light transmission can be quantified
using quantum light sensors. Some soil nutrient levels can be measured using simple field
kits; otherwise, soil samples can be collected for laboratory analyses, and soil moisture
can be measured with special probes. Precipitation is measured with a pluviometer set up
in each site. Composition and density of surrounding vegetation can be assessed, for
example, by randomly selecting a specified number of equal-sized plots and recording the
number and identity of all species within them.
Environmental comparisons can be made between preferred versus non-preferred collection sites and/or times to identify ecological factors that differ significantly. These
measures can be complemented with chemical assays to assess whether there is significant
chemical variation among sites and/or times. However, while some of the chemical compounds responsible for the activities characterized for a plant may play ecological roles—
such as defense against herbivory, pollinator attraction, and allelopathy—the roles played
by many secondary chemical compounds are not known.
Complementing Field Observations with Manipulative
Experiments
By identifying the factors that differ significantly across preferred and non-preferred collection sites and/or times, we gain insight into which of these may be related to observed differences in the pharmacologic potential and/or perceived potency of plants. To link these
ecological factors more directly to changes in plant chemistry, controlled manipulative
experiments are needed. If insect herbivory was identified to be significantly higher in
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preferred gathering sites, experiments should be designed to test this hypothesis by exposing
plants to various intensities of insect herbivory. This can be accomplished using simple
methods, for example, by using mesh exclosures to exclude all or some insects from sets
of plants. Light levels can be experimentally controlled and compared through the use of
shading (employing mesh, thatch, and other materials). Soil nutrient levels can be manipulated by variable augmentation with fertilizers. To minimize differences due to genetic diversity, these experiments should be conducted with clones (for example, vegetative cuttings)
or with the seeds of known crosses. DNA analysis would better clarify this issue, but the
focus of this discussion is field research.
Distinguishing Environmental from Genetic Influences
Genotypic variation also can contribute to differences in phytochemistry among individual
plants and populations. In the case of wild-harvested plants, if significant phytochemical
variation between preferred and non-preferred sites/times of collection is observed, comparisons of ecological conditions should be complemented with experiments that can
help distinguish between environmental and genetic variation. Common Garden and
Reciprocal Transplant experiments (Gibson 2002) offer simple, appropriate methods for
testing genetic versus environmental influences on observed differences in phenology (in
this case, phytochemistry). In common garden experiments seeds or clones from populations
of the species in question are collected and planted together in a common garden environment; traits that appear only in one or more populations but never in a common garden
are thought to be environmentally induced. Similarly, in reciprocal transplant experiments,
if plant A evidences B-like phytochemical changes when transplanted to the habitat of plant
B, environmental influences are invoked.
Identifying Optimal Conditions for Medicinal Plant
Cultivation
These methods can be employed to explore potential anthropogenic impacts on medicinal
plants. Human-induced disturbances such logging, grazing, and fire alter both biotic and
abiotic factors that affect plant growth and might, thus, affect the phytochemistry of plant
populations. Medicinal plant cultivation in homegardens has been promoted as means to
help improve human health, and the cultivation of species that are overharvested in the
wild has been promoted in agroforestry and other cultivation systems. Herbivore population
composition and density, nutrient supplies, light availability, and other ecological factors
can vary significantly among populations located in forests, homegardens or agroforestry
systems. This variation, in turn, has potential consequences for phytochemistry. Many healers maintain that cultivated plants do not have the same potency as wild-collected counterparts. By identifying optimal collection sites (according to medicinal plant collectors) and
determining some of the ecological conditions that distinguish them, these methods can
help guide the design of appropriate cultivation strategies.
The relationships among collector decision making, ecological variables, and perceived
potency are highly complex. The methods outlined above are not aimed necessarily at identifying cause and effect relationships but rather at providing insight into some of the ways
in which these variables may be connected. Phytochemical composition is one of various
factors that can influence the perceived effectiveness of medicinal plants. It is often difficult
to assign constituents to specific actions or ecological functions.
Combining Ethnographic and Ecological Approaches
241
Identifying the Ecological Impacts of Medicinal
Plant Harvest
For millennia people have depended on the harvest of medicinal plants not only for local
needs but also for commercial trade, and today many Indigenous and other rural communities continue to do so. While the harvest of many medicinal plant species may be ecologically sustainable, heavy subsistence or commercial harvest can lead to decreases in, or
extinction of, local populations. This has led to local concerns over the decreased availability
of key medicinal resources as well as to larger conservation concerns for many species
(Ghimire et al. 2008; Schippman et al. 2002; Ticktin 2004). What are the ecological and conservation implications of harvesting medicinal plants? How and why do harvest strategies
and their impacts vary according to cultural, socioeconomic, and ecological factors?
Under what conditions—ecological, cultural, socioeconomic, or other—might medicinal
plant collection have the greatest potential for sustainability? By addressing these questions,
ethnobiologists can help design conservation strategies for medicinal plant use that are both
culturally and ecologically appropriate.
Understanding Medicinal Plant Harvests as Local
Management Systems
In some communities the commercial harvest of a given medicinal plant species may be a
new commercial endeavor and there are no pre-existing harvesting traditions. However, in
many communities the harvest of medicinal plants for subsistence or commercial purposes
is part of a long established tradition. Medicinal plants often form part of larger local
resource management systems. To understand medicinal plant harvests we must therefore
understand the larger management context in which they occur. Local resource management
practices are based on knowledge of the local environment, and consist of sets of practices,
techniques, and tools for managing local ecosystems and their elements. They are guided by
social institutions and shaped by local worldviews, and cannot be interpreted out of context
(Berkes 2008). Throughout this chapter we use the term “local” to refer to Indigenous and
other cultural communities who have resided in a particular location for a long period of
time.
Local resource management systems are usually complex and can involve the manipulation of plant resources in many different ways and at differing ecological, spatial, and temporal scales (Alcorn 1981; Casas et al. 1996; Turner et al. 2000). Practices that achieve this
include enhancement (such as transplanting individuals to areas where they have better
chances of survival, sowing of propagules) as well as protection and encouragement
(such as weeding competing species, pruning, digging soil around the roots, mulching, coppicing, opening forest canopies to let in more light). In South India, the use of traditional low
intensity fire management is thought to help maintain high levels of production of the medicinal fruit amla (Phyllanthus emblica), by reducing hemiparasite load (Setty et al. 2008).
All of these practices should be documented in any study of medicinal plant management.
Assessing Variation in Medicinal Plant Harvest Practices
Local resource management practices are often highly variable among and within local
communities, as well as over time, in response to shifting sociopolitical, cultural, and
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environmental influences. Identifying this variation in medicinal plant harvesting practices is
critical as it can result in very different ecological impacts. The potential of individual plants
to survive, grow, and reproduce will be influenced differently if collection occurs during
different times of the year (e.g., during the wet or dry season), at different plant life stages
(e.g., pre- or post-reproduction), for diverse plant parts (e.g., the branch holding its leaves
or just the leaves), at varied intensities (e.g., many times in one year and nothing the next,
a few times each year), and in different environments, such as dry forest versus gallery forests
(cf. Gaoue and Ticktin 2008; Guedge et al. 2007; Ticktin 2004). Spatial patterns of harvest
(both within populations and across landscapes) can affect regeneration and have important
implications for conservation. Further variation in ecological impacts can result from different management practices such as thinning or weeding populations to reduce competition for
light or nutrients, light manipulation such as trimming overhead branches, fire management,
and grazing.
The documentation and assessment of variation in medicinal plant harvest and management practices can be achieved through the integration of ethnographic and ecological
methods, including participatory ecological research. Comparative research within and
among both human and ecological communities is needed to identify the links between
specific practices, their drivers, and their ecological impacts. To the extent that plant management strategies are not necessarily explicit, and that many plants are managed outside of
official harvest activities, important information will be generated: through participant
observation, with a variety of participants under diverse socioeconomic circumstances,
including land tenure; in varied environments; and at different times of the year.
Actual harvest and management of plants can (and usually does) differ from the way it is
described during interviews. Although harvesters may not intentionally mislead the
researcher, they may describe optimal—not actual—harvesting, or leave out a number of
steps because they seem too obvious. There are differences in knowledge and practice, or
between “active and passive knowledge” (Ghimire et al. 2004). Researchers need to observe
multiple actual harvesting by a number of different harvesters. In Tanzania, McMillen found
that healers and other medicinal plant harvesters described how culturally guided collection
methods (including taboos) that articulated an ethos of resource conservation are followed in
ideal situations, but she observed that their application is highly context specific and their
practice is irregular (McMillen 2008). In Nepal, Ghimire and coauthors (2004) observed
that commercial collectors who had extensive experience harvesting and a good knowledge
of plant lifecycles and reproduction did not differ in their harvest techniques from those
without such knowledge.
Meaning and knowledge may not emerge in interviews and discussions that take place
apart from harvesting events. The strictest taboos, if unobserved, confer no ecological
benefits. Researchers’ presence impacts the behaviors of people and the characteristics of
the environment in which they work. Staged collection events may be done primarily for
the benefit of the researcher and bear little resemblance to harvesters’ actual management
practices. An understanding of the social institutions and worldviews that guide resource
management practices will emerge from rigorous design, application, and triangulation of
ethnographic methods and exacting data analysis.
Experimental Approaches to Assessing Medicinal Plant
Harvest Impacts
Harvesting medicinal plants can have ecological impacts at different ecological scales
(Ticktin 2004) and therefore can be assessed in different ways. For instance, the harvest
Combining Ethnographic and Ecological Approaches
243
of plants or plant parts (roots, bark, seeds, leaves, latex) can alter an individual plant’s vital
rates (survival, growth, reproduction), sometimes by affecting its physiology. For example,
the harvest of frankincense resin (Boswellia papyrifera) in Ethiopia can decrease rates of
flower and fruit production and increase production of non-viable seeds (Rijkers et al.
2006). Changes in these vital rates can result in changes in population size, structure, and
dynamics over the longer term, and in plant – plant or plant – animal interactions. For
example, even low levels of root harvest of the Himalayan medicinal herb Nardostachys
grandiflora can lead to population decline (Ghimire et al. 2008). Heavy and long-term
harvesting of medicinal plants, often in conjunction with other management strategies,
can alter community structure, composition, and diversity, as well as ecosystem processes.
In South India, dry deciduous forests subject to high intensity extraction of medicinal plants
have lower tree species richness and higher proportions of wind-dispersed versus animaldispersed understorey plants and seedlings than comparable areas of forest with lower intensity of medicinal plant harvest (Ganeshiah et al. 1998; Murali et al. 1996).
Field experiments to test the ecological effects of management might entail comparing a
given management practice to a control, for example, comparing how variations on a harvest
practice affect a variable such as reproduction, for example, tapping medicinal tree resin at
different intensities. Experiments also can be carried out at different ecological scales, from
individual plants to landscapes, depending on the interests of the researcher and the local
communities.
At the ecological scale of individuals, the effects of harvesting medicinal plants can be
tested on measures of individual growth, survival, and reproduction. Working with local harvesters, diverse patterns of harvest can be simulated and experimentally applied to replicate
plants; 30 individual plants per treatment is often considered an appropriate sample size.
Since for many species the effects of harvest might be observed only after repeated harvesting, ideally these experiments should be conducted over a period of years. An understanding
of local ecological knowledge should be central to identifying additional variables to
measure. Individuals who interact closely with plants tend to have good knowledge of ecological parameters, many of which (especially in the case of tropical plants) are not documented in the bioscientific literature. Semi-structured interviews on aspects of local
ecological knowledge and the perceptions of harvest impacts should include plant harvesters
as well as a range of community members who work in the environments in which the plants
are gathered, such as hunters and firewood collectors. If medicinal plant harvesters note that
for a given herb species, individuals harvested for their leaves have fewer flowers and fruit
later in the season, these variables should be included in the study design, and the possible
implications of these changes should be assessed.
At the population level, the impacts of harvest methods can be measured by empirically
assessing population structure or dynamics, and by the use of matrix population models. For
the latter, permanent plots must be established, and the survival, growth, and reproduction
of individuals of all sizes monitored over time under different treatments. Matrix models
can serve as important tools in analysis because hypothesized changes in practice can be
modeled and their consequences evaluated. Cunningham (2001) provides detailed field
methodologies for assessing the impacts of harvest on plant individuals and populations.
These kinds of comparative ecological experiments can yield significant results because
high harvest rates under one resource management strategy may lead to population depletion,
while the same rate of harvest using another technique may foster persistence. This is
especially relevant for commercially harvested species on which many people’s livelihoods
depend, and for which over-exploitation is common. In these cases, decreasing harvest levels
might simply not be realistic. Variation in sustainability might be due to subtle differences in
management practices that often only become apparent through in-depth ethnographic
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research. It is imperative to identify locally acceptable management practices that can
increase the yield of particular plants while allowing populations of that species to persist.
Observational Approaches to Assessing Medicinal Plant
Harvest Impacts
Manipulative experiments are often not feasible in the field, particularly when one is working with resources such as medicinal plants, which are under high harvest pressure. In these
cases, observational experiments can substitute. For example, if it is not possible to work
with local harvesters to experimentally simulate different bark harvest patterns on sets of
individual trees (manipulative experiment), an alternative is to compare trees that are already
being harvested under different strategies (observational strategy). It is important to ensure
true replication in these experiments so that differences in harvesting strategies are not confounded with ecological and other differences between the sites. The experiment cannot be a
comparison of trees from Site 1, which are harvested under strategy A, with trees from Site 2
harvested under strategy B. One needs to use a minimum of two sites for each strategy.
Observational experiments can be critical when the spatial or time scale of interest is
large. For example, to assess the impacts of local management practices at the level of ecological communities and landscapes, observational experiments are usually required. How
do harvest strategies for collecting medicinal plants affect plant community diversity and
composition? This question is important because, while some harvest practices which are
very effective in increasing populations of medicinal plant species might also sustain
‘non-useful’ species, other practices might result in the decline of some important but
‘non-useful’ species.
By comparing historical and current voucher specimens, Law and Salick (2005) showed
that the heavily harvested medicinal plant, Himalayan snow lotus (Saussuria laniceps), has
become significantly smaller over time. This has also been the case with American ginseng
(Panax quinquefolius) (McGraw 2001). In these cases long-term harvesting of the largest
individuals by harvesters appears to have led to selection for smaller plants, and therefore
to decrease in plant size, similar to “logging down” in forests; and “fishing down” the
food chain in fisheries. This has important conservation implications. If smaller-sized
plants have lower survival and reproductive capacity, then the effects of both harvest and
selection may decrease overall population viability.
Observational experiments are useful for evaluating the impacts of traditional social
institutions on plant populations or communities, for example assessing medicinal plant
diversity or density in sacred sites (e.g., Salick et al. 2007) or evaluating the effects of
seasonal harvest prohibitions on plant community dynamics.
Ideally, both manipulative and observational approaches can be combined. For those
medicinal plants that are heavily harvested, an observational approach may be used to compare the population growth rates in areas subject to different kinds of harvest strategies. Then
experimental plots, perhaps arranged through an agreement with local community members
or in some kind of protected area, can be used to experimentally test any important effects
that appear to emerge from the observational experiments. This experimental complement is
important because plant communities and landscapes commonly experience multiple uses
and disturbances and so it can be difficult to tease out the impacts of any one management
or harvesting practice in observational experiments. At the same time, observational experiments are critical if the plant in question is slow-growing, and the effects of harvest practices
may take years to observe in an experimental setting.
References
245
Participatory Ecological Research Methods
Participatory ecological research offers an important, but still underutilized, tool for documenting the character and ecological consequences of local management practices.
Researchers should factor in sufficient time early in their field schedules to ensure that collaborative ventures with local people are based on good rapport and mutually vested
partners.
Participatory research involves community members in all stages of the research
process, from the design of questions and coordination of methods to the execution of
experiments and interpretation of the results. Local communities can identify the issues
and questions of greatest importance to them. In cases in which Indigenous land rights
are threatened, communities are interested in the documentation of their practices to mediate
legal issues related to land tenure or the commercialization of species. In other cases, communities are concerned about the diminution of key cultural resources. Harvesters and
researchers can work together to define specific research questions and hypotheses and
identify the practices and variables that are the most important to measure. Local methods
for monitoring the quality and quantity of resources can be used in conjunction with or
instead of bioscientific methods. For example, Setty et al. (2008) showed that measures
of amla (Phyllanthus emblica and P. indofischerii) fruit production obtained through
observations by harvesters walking through the forest while conducting other activities
can be as accurate as detailed bioscientific methods, which are much more time intensive.
Collectors and researchers can quantitatively monitor aspects of vegetation dynamics in
permanently marked plots. Local harvesters can lead activities such as recording the
intensity, timing, and location of plant collection. Using GPS, collectors can map populations and individuals to document spatial patterns of harvest both within populations
and across landscapes.
Such information is important for identifying patterns and intensities of harvest
for heavily harvested and economically important species such as many medicinal
plants and animals, developing quantitative datasets that reflect actual local practices, and
monitoring the long-term health of populations and plant communities. Local monitoring
is key for adaptive management strategies (Cunningham 2001; Setty et al. 2008; Ticktin
et al. 2002).
Research objectives and methods that are designed in collaboration with communities can better address and respond to local interests and needs. From a conservation perspective, communities who are involved in the research, and have observed and
carried out (formal or informal) experiments themselves, are more likely to put the results
into practice.
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MARTIN G, ET AL. The roots of trade: deciphering herbalist
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Chapter
15
Assessments of Indigenous
Peoples’ Traditional Food and
Nutrition Systems
LETITIA M. MCCUNE
BotanyDoc Education and Consulting Services, Tucson, Arizona
HARRIET V. KUHNLEIN
Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
METHODS
250
STEP 1. THE TEAM AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION
251
STEP 2. TRADITIONAL FOOD LISTS
253
STEP 3. INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEWS FOR FOOD USE PATTERNS
256
STEP 4. SCIENTIFIC DATA COLLECTION FROM SPECIES
258
STEP 5. COMMUNITY DISCUSSIONS, PRESENTATIONS/REPORTS,
AND OBJECTIVES TO USE LOCAL FOOD IN AN INTERVENTION
TO IMPROVE HEALTH
259
RESULTS
260
THE SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES
260
THE CANADIAN ARCTIC
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INTERNATIONAL INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ CASE STUDIES
262
REFLECTIONS
263
REFERENCES
264
The food systems of Indigenous peoples offer important information for understanding the
functional aspects of the culture, environment, and health of the people using them. As well
as the universally recognized contribution that food makes to physical health, many
Indigenous societies recognize the central aspects of food to mental, emotional, and spiritual
health. An environment that has remained reasonably intact for people dwelling there for
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
249
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Chapter 15 Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional Food and Nutrition Systems
many generations can be assumed to provide at least the minimum of food and food diversity
to support good health and social function. In this chapter we focus on the food systems of
those Indigenous peoples still dwelling within rural areas that can provide a major portion of
dietary energy and essential nutrients as traditional food from the local environment. While
many of the methods described can be useful in any areas and with any group of people, the
focus here is working within a defined culture in a specific environment or homeland to
understand the nuances of food resources available and used locally.
With the encroachment of industrial food resources into all corners of the world it is
useful to be able to assess the interplay and interdigitation of traditional food and market
food in the daily and annual diets of community members. Change in Indigenous peoples’
food systems is universal; developing an awareness of change and the factors driving it are
among the first important considerations in the assessment process of a food system within a
particular culture (Kuhnlein and Receveur 1996). Also important are recognition of the
actual self-identification by the culture under review (see Bartlett et al. 2007) and understanding of constraints in the food environment (Kuhnlein and Receveur 1996).
Goals for traditional food research with Indigenous peoples must be set in collaboration
with the Indigenous communities contributing to the research process. This means discussion and agreement on the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples (http://www.iwgia.org/sw248.asp) that touch on food resources, and how research
can contribute to policies that recognize the right to food (Damman et al. 2008). Advances in
processes that protect the rights of Indigenous peoples in health research have been outlined
by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/29339.html;
see also Bannister and Hardison 2011; Gilmore and Eshbaugh 2011).
The Centre for Indigenous Peoples’ Nutrition and Environment (CINE) was created at
McGill University in Montreal, Canada, as a resource to assist Indigenous peoples with
research and understanding of food systems. With leadership from Indigenous organizations
in Canada and academic-based researchers, advances in methodology for food system
assessments have contributed to food and nutrition research and understanding the impact
of food biodiversity for Indigenous peoples in many parts of the world (http://www.
mcgill.ca/cine and http://indigenousnutrition.org/). This chapter largely draws on the
research conducted through CINE.
METHODS
Methods described here are based on a document created by CINE researchers with international case studies of Indigenous peoples in Asia (http://www.mcgill.ca/files/cine/
manual.pdf). Five general steps are involved in the documentation of traditional food
systems.
1 The research team needs to be assembled and background data gathered. A crucial
aspect of the research team is leadership members of the intended community who
have expressed a desire for the research and will directly benefit from it.
2 Acquisition of food list information.
3 Description of food use patterns.
4 Gathering of taxonomic, ethnoecological, and nutrient data for animal and plant
species in the food list.
5 Review of the information with the community and any necessary procedures to ensure
the health of the community and the continued use of the traditional food system.
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Week
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Set-up and Background Data
Community Food System Data Tables
Key-informant Interviews/Focus Groups
Community Traditional Food List
Market Survey
Food Sampling and Laboratory Analysis
Community Discussions
Interpretation and Report
Planning to Conduct Intervention
Figure 15.1
Timeline schematic as an example plan. Courtesy of H.V. Kuhnlein.
The gathering and reporting of data with the community can be undertaken in about eight
weeks, if progress is consistent (e.g., Fig. 15.1; Kuhnlein et al. 2006c). Data collection
may need to be repeated at different times of the year to accommodate the seasonality of
different foods. This timeframe is for about 30 unique foods to be analyzed for key nutrients
of interest within six weeks. The length of time the chosen laboratory has to devote to the
project is variable, but it is reasonable to aim for completion within this time period.
Step 1. The Team and Background Information
A research management team should be compiled, including a specialist trained in nutrition,
the local leaders of the community, an anthropologist or cultural specialist of the area, a laboratory analyst, and a food composition database and dietary analysis specialist. These members should be consulted early in the research process to determine details of the research
plan. It often also helps to have an herbarium specialist and local environmental specialist
to ensure appropriate methods of sampling and to determine environmental constraints.
The eight-week timeframe for data collection in the community depends on having a
research manager and two field assistants. In addition the use of a translator (if needed),
the training of community members in research methods, and the use of a good facilitator
in the focus groups may increase the number of staff members on the project.
Once it has been established that the proposed research is a priority for the community,
a good participatory relationship needs to exist. Participatory agreements should be in place
as described in chapters in this textbook or as found at the CINE and World Health
Organization (WHO) websites. Issues that must be addressed in the research collaboration
include: funding, ethics and consent of participants, research partnerships for mutual benefit,
intellectual property rights, respect and understanding for diversity by engaging local translators and interviewers, advice from local communities, capacity building for the research
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Chapter 15 Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional Food and Nutrition Systems
process, transparency in resource use, and effective management and evaluation of the
research (CIHR 2007; Sims and Kuhnlein 2008; UNPFII 2007).
Community trust is imperative to ensure participation and accurate and complete documentation of the traditional food system. Often food intake includes sensitive subjects such
as ritual feasting, medicinal teas, and sacred plant ingestion. In many Indigenous cultures,
and some could argue in Western society’s functional foods, there is a blurry line separating
medicine and food (Johns 1990). Among the 35 different plant species used for symptoms
associated with diabetes by the Indigenous peoples of the Canadian boreal forest 60% were
also used as beverages or tonics and 63% were also used as food (McCune and Johns 2003).
Etkin and Ross (1982) also illustrate this in their study of the Hausa of northern Nigeria, with
many examples of medicines used as foods in the context of gastrointestinal disease.
Components that could be considered medicinal in food include, but are not limited to,
tannins (which relieve diarrhea), vermifuge agents (as in condiments like epazote,
Chenopodium ambrosioides), antibacterial agents (as in capsaicin in chili peppers), and antioxidants (as in vitamins which are preventative of cancer, heart disease, etc.). One should be
aware of potential nutrients ingested in medicinal preparations, and potential components of
the food system that could alleviate medical conditions in the community. Care should be
taken to respect the intellectual property rights of the community and of those individuals
knowledgeable about the medicinal properties of species in their local habitat. It is important
that it is understood that the end results will be disseminated to the community along with
other benefits of the research, such as the training of community members in research methodology, the disbursement of medical supplies, health literature for the local school, or other
agreed methods of compensation.
Informed consent must be secured (see guidelines in Gilmore and Eshbaugh 2011).
Suitable consent forms typically consist of: statements of privacy (no information will be
publicly linked to a name); that they can drop out of the project at any time without fear
of recrimination; the risks if any; a summary of the project; and the leaders’ names and
contact information. If forms cannot be used, there should be documentation of each individual’s verbal consent associated with the same information that would have been on a
form. Members of the research management team associated with a university should
have access to a Human Subjects Protection Program either through an internal ethics
review board or granting agencies. Although often tailored to medical or drug evaluation,
these training programs are relevant to nutrition projects. At all times the research team
should be respectful of all statements made in the data collection process, respectful of
the time of the volunteers, and protective of the volunteers’ confidentiality of statements
and personal information. All notes should be located in a secure place as some will consider
the information given as private. Photographic documentation is an asset, but it should be
ensured that the community as a whole is comfortable with photography, and that methods
are put in place for individual authorization to use photographs for the intended purpose. In
the published literature there are examples of acknowledgement of community contributors
(e.g., Kuhnlein and Turner 1991; Turner and Kuhnlein 1983) and the association of names
with knowledge (e.g., Turner et al. 1983). These would be in addition to agreements with
the community, with informed consent, and with the knowledge of the leaders of the
community.
Background information should be gathered in line with the documented request of the
community for the intended research. This involves collecting known and/or published data
on the geographical area and environmental threats, the types of plants and animals, any
known nutrient analyses of the local plants and animals, any known nutritional information
of the population of the area (including nutrition surveillance or development program
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253
reports), and the history of the Indigenous community’s language and cultural background.
Ethnographies and migration history in the area and the patterns of annual migration
(perhaps for employment) into other areas (such as agricultural or urban areas) should be
reviewed to facilitate the research plan. Information should also be collected on the community’s infrastructure, general family structure, access to health care, occupational profile,
and the uses of traditional and Western medicine. Information on general food production
practices and access to food markets should be collected. This information will give a framework for developing focus group questions and discussions for Step 2.
Step 2. Traditional Food Lists
Traditional food systems often include 70– 100 species or more. Gathering information from
a few key informants in a freelist format will begin the identification process. Recipes are
not the focus at this stage, but rather the names of plants and animals and their parts and
life cycle stages used for food. The information from these key informants will be solidified
and augmented through focus group information (6– 10 individuals). These focus groups
can use food groupings (such as fruits, vegetables, etc.) to help trigger information (see
Fig. 15.2). A seasonal calendar can also be used for identifying when each food is available.
Food usages and preferences for mothers and children can also be gathered during these
focus groups, as well as information on casual foods by age and gender that could depend
on location and activities. Usual portion sizes used by age and gender are key information
for dietary analysis. Care should be taken to interview a broad spectrum of members of
the community in relation to gender and age as there are, inevitably, significant differences
in food consumption patterns. Potential examples (in addition to obvious differences in
quantity, spiciness, etc.) include extra consumption of meat by male members of the community during a hunt, reservation of organ meats for the elderly, or the self-sacrifice of
women’s food to children in times of food deprivation in the area. Methods of locating
key informants and interviewing techniques can be found further in Blum et al. (1997),
Kuhnlein and Pelto (1997) and Kuhnlein et al. (2006c).
Figure 15.2
Karen community food list workshop. Photograph from H.V. Kuhnlein.
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Chapter 15 Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional Food and Nutrition Systems
Any plant species or local food sources that are no longer used or are limited in use or
availability should be determined, as well as the reasons why, as far as possible. Elders or the
younger generation may have rejected certain foods for taste or cultural reasons and could
be sources for this information. Additional information may be gathered from those living
on the outskirts of the community or those with more limited access to market items.
Reasons for a drop in the use of a food can be varied, including, but not limited to, pollution,
government regulations restricting use or access, resource depletion, movement of the community away from the food source, building on the usual collection site, and so on. It is
imperative that these food sources no longer accessed are documented, as they may have
been a source of nutrients for former generations. They may serve as a potential source of
nutrients for the future and/or a means of identifying what may be lacking in the current
food system. As these species may be more difficult to collect, information can be gathered
with pictures, as well as descriptive narratives about appearance, location, harvest times, and
preparation. Included in this list are those species considered for consumption during times
of drought or as “famine foods.”
Market and vendor data should be collected, especially for those foods likely to be high
in nutrients and/or available during seasons of little hunting/gathering and/or agriculture.
They may also be a source of nutrients as foods popular for children. Variations in cost and
availability throughout the year should also be noted. As with other food source documentation, care should be taken to properly identify the part used (leaves versus roots/tubers,
liver or bone, etc.). Different parts can have differences in antioxidants (McCune and
Johns 2007) as well as in other nutrients such that assumptions should not be made about
the part consumed. For example: the white of a lemon rind, and sometimes the peel, is at
times consumed by Indigenous youth of the Southwestern U.S., thus adding antioxidants
and anticancer components to the diet (Crowell and Gould 1994). Varietal differences in
species are also important: white potatoes have different nutrients from yellow potatoes,
red carrots have different levels of carotene from orange carrots, and red palm oil has a
vastly different content of pro-vitamin A from clear corn cooking oil. The addition of condiments, spices, or greens may also be in amounts uncharacteristic to the interviewer and
could be a considerable source of nutrients.
Observations or documentation of food preparation methods and techniques are necessary to identify added minerals or other nutrients in the diet (e.g., Fig. 15.3). The addition of
water, or procedures that increase nutrient absorption or availability must be documented
(Kuhnlein 2000). Some examples are: (1) oils consumed with orange or red food items
can increase the bioavailability of lipid-soluble vitamins or carotenoids including lycopene
(Unlu et al. 2005); (2) sources of vitamin C consumed with iron can increase iron absorption;
(3) condiments, salts, or ash additions can add minerals (Kuhnlein 1980); and (4) the
addition of conifer needles or other greens high in acid to pit-cooking can increase the availability of sugars in the consumed foods (Crawford and Yip 2007). Ambient soil content in
the area can also affect the mineral or vitamin content of the plants harvested (Ferland and
Sadowski 1992; Mercadante and Rodriquez-Amaya 1991) potentially causing a variance in
nutrients as compared to standardized nutrient databases.
With the foregoing information, food data tables can be compiled. Costs, preparation
(part used, boil/roast/dry, etc.), personal preferences, and quantities harvested/available
to the community (based on season and market availability) should be documented.
Typical data collection forms can be found at http://www.mcgill.ca/files/cine/manual.pdf
(the document can be downloaded in sections, and example forms downloaded separately).
Searches need to be conducted to gather information on the nutrients available in those
species that already exist in food databases in the public and scientific literature. Care should
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255
Figure 15.3 Pohnpeian fish traditionally prepared with fermented breadfruit balls. Photograph courtesy of
kpstudios. (See color insert.)
be taken to properly identify the variety of the species used as compared to the variety
reported in the literature. If there is a difference, new nutrient data on the unanalyzed variety
may need to be gathered. Nutrient content can vary based on size, maturity, color, part
collected and consumed, and so on. Information on the nutrients known in many traditionally used plants in Canada can be found in Kuhnlein and Turner’s (1991) book on traditional
plant foods of Canadian Indigenous peoples, Arnason et al. (1981), the Canadian Nutrient
File (http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/nutiriton/fiche-nutri-data/index-eng.php), and CINE’s
database on native foods. Databases on unique foods of other localities include CINE’s database in the website above, the USDA Ethnic Foods database (http://www.nal.usda.gov/
fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR18/reports/sr18fg35.pdf), and the USDA nutrient data laboratory
database for standard reference (http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=
8964).
Ideally the researchers at this point will have systematically collected information on:
freelists of species, groupings of species, seasonality and preferred harvesting months (see
Fig. 15.4), child/adult preferences (may be combined with other data), market products/
availability, little-used species, and individual food and nutrient data tables. The research
team may decide to focus on a short list of key food items for more intensive study. For
example, a short list of key micronutrient foods (25 – 30 species/varieties) can be compiled
using the information gathered to this point from the individual food descriptions, use, preferences, and known nutrient contents. Micronutrient-rich foods for this list that are likely to
be high (for example) in iron (animal products and dark leafy greens), vitamin A (yellow and
orange fruits and vegetables) or vitamin C (fruits and greens), are widely acceptable to the
community and are relatively accessible at least for part of the year (greater than one month).
A food list for further study could have foods that have little or incomplete nutrient and general documentation in public and scientific literature. Depending on the research interest,
shortlists could be developed for complementary foods for infants, for unique animal
sources, or plant foods in a particular category, and so on. Information from the food patterns
of Step 3 will help solidify these short lists.
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Chapter 15 Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional Food and Nutrition Systems
Figure 15.4 Salome Yesudas separating food seeds
by season in the Zaheerabad Dalit area, India.
Photograph courtesy of kpstudios. (See color insert.)
Step 3. Individual Interviews for Food Use Patterns
Interviews targeting food use patterns can be conducted during the same span of time as
Step 2 and will give a good picture of the average consumption patterns of the community.
If an intervention is anticipated, statistical power needs to be considered at this point to determine the appropriate number of respondents. Often 100 respondents will fill the statistical
requirement. The community leaders should be consulted for general food pattern differences (and numbers) within the community (i.e., those in outskirts, those more likely to
use traditional foods, those who rely heavily on market products, etc.). Random selection
should then be conducted to determine respondents from these groups. The complex process
of dietary analysis is most reliably completed with the cooperation of a professional dietary
analyst—usually located in government or university settings. Key methods include the
24-hour recall and the food frequency questionnaire. Procedures and forms for these can
be found in most nutrition textbooks. These methods are described briefly here.
1 The 24-hour recall documents the average consumption pattern of a group, but not
the usual pattern of an individual, whose intake can vary day to day. Two or more
recalls are needed on non-consecutive days of one week. Seasonality should be considered and series of recalls possibly done, especially with those more likely to consume traditional foods. The recall also gathers portion size information so that
calculations can be done with food composition data on the nutrient intake of the
group. The forms consist of documenting whether or not it was a usual day (not
sick, not a holiday, etc.) and columns headed with the time of day (start when
waking in the morning), food item, ingredients, general preparation method,
source of food, amount consumed, food code (developed from source list), weight
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in grams, and comments. Information should be available on the regular meal
patterns of the community (two meals per day?) and any differences in meal patterns
by age and gender. Most standardized recall forms have provision to take a “second
pass” at recall for usually missed items such as between-meal drinks and snacks,
additions to beverages and “spreads” on bread products.
2 The food frequency interview can be completed at the same time as the recalls and
provides data related to how often traditional food items are consumed that season,
with a possible focus on shortlisted key items. The data form should not only state
the name of the individual (to be later coded numerically), but also the community
name for the season and the associated months. Columns should be included for listing the traditional food name, the number of times it is consumed (per day, week, or
month) and the range of typical portion sizes. In addition an area is often included for
a team member to rank the foods according to amounts of vitamin A, vitamin C and
iron, and/or other nutrients. Portion size is difficult to capture quantitatively, as it is
variable. Information on mean portion size can be gleaned from recall data. Recalls of
purchases can be useful also, including price of portions purchased.
3 The card sort method helps to understand the food system by giving cultural characteristics to the traditional foods. Cards are created from index cards with numbers on
one side and a picture or drawing of the food on the other. Usually a maximum of 30
items can be considered in one card sort. Food items are grouped in a game-like setting and tabulated on a data form which typically includes a column for listing the
numbers of the foods for each of the groupings done in a card sort and a column for
the characteristics associated with that group (see Fig. 15.5). Data collection can
be divided into more than one card sort. For more information see Blum et al. (1997).
Figure 15.5
Professor Sakorn administering the
card sort exercise with Karen, Thailand. Photograph
from H.V. Kuhnlein.
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Chapter 15 Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional Food and Nutrition Systems
Additional data can be completed for general health characteristics of individuals
(for example, height, weight, hair condition, paleness of eyelid, general eyesight, and
mouth sores), infant food history (breastfeeding history, other milks, introduction of other
foods, etc. up to two years of age), taste scores and ranks for the individual food items
per interviewer and child, and attributes associated with the foods especially important in
infant and child care. Summaries can then be created for the card sort information from
the community as well as for each individual food item for the attributes associated with
each food species.
Step 4. Scientific Data Collection from Species
Nutrient data is needed on the foods identified in Step 3 in order to complete the dietary
analysis of that step. If nutrient data and tables cannot be found in the scientific literature,
or if published material refers to types and varieties different from those found locally,
then laboratory analyses of certain foods and their components should be considered.
Local vegetables, for instance, are often more nutrient dense than commercial varieties.
Foods to be analyzed and documented with specimens should be carefully considered
from the food list, and the list shown to the local community leaders for confirmation of
their importance. In considering costs in time and money, these items should be those
missing accurate or complete information in the literature. Care should be taken to ensure
proper scientific identification and nomenclature, as analyses of improperly identified
foods are a wasted effort and difficult to publish in the scientific literature. Plant foods
should usually be identified via voucher specimens at a herbarium (Turner and Nolan
2011). Pictures and descriptions of the local environment where the food is located or
grown are valuable. Animal information can be gathered from photographs of the habitat
of the animals, specimen photographs of the intact animal before kitchen preparation, and
so on (see Hunn 2011).
The first step in analysis is to identify a good food analysis laboratory, ideally not too
distant from the sample collection site. The laboratory should be scrutinized for good practices that include the ability to generate an accurate result repeatedly from the same sample.
Internal standards from reliable sources should be used within each experiment and between
experiments. The laboratory should have clean glassware, well trained staff, daily record
keeping (lab notebooks) and well calibrated equipment. Costs of food analysis can vary
by laboratory but could be in the range of US$190 (Thailand national laboratory 2001
prices) to get one sample analyzed for proximate composition (protein, moisture, fat,
ash), dietary fiber, retinol, carotene, folic acid, vitamin C, iron, and zinc.
Separate samples are gathered from those used for identification purposes. Since
samples are for nutrient analysis they should not be pressed, dried, or exposed to excess
heat or other conditions that could cause spoilage or loss of nutrients. Vitamin C, for
instance, can disappear quite rapidly from a drying specimen. Sample amounts should be
100– 500 g, clean, without adhering moisture or soil and in the form typically gathered as
food (correct part and not unripe or spoiled). Each sample should have a label attached
that includes the name, place, date, person collecting, and the size of the sample. Sample
numbers should also be included and correspond to numbers already known by the laboratory. A field notebook should also include this information for later confirmation. Samples
can be gathered in clean ziplock bags, placed in coolers with ice, and transported quickly to
where they can be frozen until analysis. If cooked samples are to be included (if that is the
usual preparation for consumption) cooking will help reduce spoilage during transport.
Methods
259
Careful documentation needs to be done to include the amount of water added to the
uncooked item (also measured) or time/temperature of roasting, baking, and so on. No
additional ingredients should be included during cooking, as this makes nutrient identification by species impossible.
The AOAC (Association of Official Analytical Chemists) has a standard reference for
analysis methods. Analytical methods can also be found at the Canadian internet site
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/res-rech/analy-meth/chem/index-eng.php and recent articles using current methods of analysis can be found in the Journal of Food Composition
and Analysis.
Wells or water sources used by the community should be considered as a potential
source of minerals, including iron and calcium, and therefore possibly analyzed. The
amount of water consumed by individuals (this includes uses as teas, mixed beverages,
soups, etc.), should be documented in the 24-hour recall to capture this potential source
of nutrients. Contaminants in water can also be enumerated in this way. Also remember
that cookware may provide metal nutrients or may react with nutrient chemicals in
foods; preparation methods and cooking utensils should be stated on the sample
collection form.
In areas of the world associated with increased pollutants, whether from local or global
sources, analyses of foods may be needed to reveal contaminants. Care must be used in
any determination of associated risk and benefit of traditional foods. Detailed analysis
in combination with all the above methods would be required to determine the dose of
any particular contaminant as well as associated variations of location and individual food
species. Market foods are often proven to be inferior nutrient sources in comparison
to local foods (Jensen et al. 1997). Traditional foods may be dense in nutrients and fulfill
cultural, spiritual and other roles in the traditional society. For further discussion see
Kuhnlein et al. (2005) and Oostdam et al. (2005).
Step 5. Community Discussions, Presentations/Reports,
and Objectives to Use Local Food in an Intervention to
Improve Health
A review of the data collected should be done in a meeting which includes the key community members of the research team. This is important to identify any significant errors
in feasibility from the community perspective. A shortlist of foods (10 – 20 items) could
be evaluated for relevance and potential to improve the health of the community based on
availability, taste preference, and so on as gathered in Steps 1 – 4. Following this meeting,
key informants from the community and/or other experts should discuss the environmental
advantages, disadvantages, or constraints to increasing consumption of any of the identified
food items for promotion.
A community meeting to present the findings from Steps 1 – 5 can provide feedback
as to what issues are perceived for the health of the community, the roles of the members,
and the role of the foods. Ample time should be given for comments and questions from
the key members and leaders of the community. It also helps to enlist the help of the
local members of the research team in making decisions about the best presentation style
and methods.
Following this general meeting, smaller meetings can be organized with the leaders
of the community to determine if intervention is desired using the gathered information.
If there is to be a change or intervention using the traditional food system to improve
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Chapter 15 Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional Food and Nutrition Systems
the health of the community, decisions need to be made about who would be the target
group and who and what is needed to support the effort. Subsequent meetings with important target groups (such as mothers and children), supporting groups (such as fathers,
elder women, typical hunters/gatherers), community leaders (including church and
school), and political figures will ensure the most understanding, advice, and support for
the project. If an intervention using the traditional food system is desired by the community,
adequate record keeping of suggested processes will help to ensure success. Information
on intervention methods and strategies can be found in the guidelines in Kuhnlein et al.
(2006a).
RESULTS
In this section we summarize some studies that have used the methods described above
to document the traditional food systems of Indigenous peoples. We illustrate the healthgiving properties of the traditional food sources as well as the associated food systems.
As concerns rise over the increased incidence of obesity, diabetes, and disease with the
increase in use of industrialized foods and the “Western lifestyle,” these studies contribute
to identification of ways to restore healthy local foods in diets of Indigenous peoples. (Many
of these studies are the result of concerns and research questions raised by Indigenous
peoples with the academic partners of CINE.)
The Southwestern United States
The loss of traditional food systems has been documented in the desert southwest of
the USA. With the approval of the Hopi Tribal Council and parents of schoolchildren,
research from the University of California at Berkeley was performed in the 1970s to
document the traditional foods of the Hopi. Kuhnlein and Calloway (1977) documented
information from dietary recalls of schoolchildren and women and conducted traditional
food analyses. Traditional foods consumed in the past (known from literature searches)
as well as the then current period were studied. The consumption of traditional greens
and other plant foods diminished strikingly. Further analysis of some traditional
foods found good sources of minerals with the use of culinary ash. This led to studies on
analyses of Indigenous salts including culinary ash (Kuhnlein 1980; Kuhnlein et al.
1979). This work, among others, resulted in the recognition of the health potential of blue
corn, which is often processed with ash in cooking. The anthocyanins (health promoting
antioxidants) present in the blue corn are heightened in color with the increased pH
caused by the ash addition as well as an associated increase in calcium and iron in this
food source (Kuhnlein 2000).
Diabetes has reached epidemic proportions among Indigenous peoples as they reduce
use of their traditional food systems with the introduction of food from industrialized
societies (Diamond 1992; Young 1994). For the Indigenous peoples of the southwestern
states, diabetes rates are documented as among the highest in the world at over 50% of
Akimel O’odham (Pima) between the ages of 30 and 65 and 33% of all adult American
Indians in southern Arizona (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011; Lillioja
1996). While studies are ongoing on genetic influences on diabetes, research by Ravussin
et al. (1994) illustrates the importance of the traditional lifestyle (including diet) by comparing people of Akimel O’odham heritage in Arizona with those living more traditionally in
Maycoba, Sonora, Mexico. Food frequency data demonstrated lower amounts of fat and
Results
261
higher fiber intakes in the more traditional diet and suggested reasons for the lower incidence
of diabetes in the Akimel O’odham of Mexico. Studies of traditional diets of the Tohono
O’odham (Papago) and Akimel O’odham cultures (Smith et al. 1994; Williams et al.
2001) can be augmented by those of Ross (1944) and others (e.g., Brand et al. 1990;
Nabhan et al. 1980; Teufel 1996), which document nutrient analyses of cacti including
prickly pear (Opuntia spp.), mesquite (Prosopis spp.), and traditional varieties of beans.
Many desert foods have high levels of soluble fiber, a property known to slow digestion
and to be of benefit to those prone to diabetes. Prickly pear pads and fruit have been
shown to have hypoglycemic properties (Stintzing and Carle 2005) as has mesquite, a
sweet legume often ground into flour (Brand et al. 1990). The loss of use of these traditional
foods with the introduction of wheat, commercial maize and its products, and other industrial
foods has changed the dynamics of the food system of desert peoples. With changing activity
and lifestyle patterns this has resulted in increased diabetes. Organizations such as TOCA
(Tohono O’odham Community Action) are working to re-introduce many of the traditional
foods of the culture’s original food system to help stem the tide of diabetes.
The Canadian Arctic
Concerns about contamination of the environment led to analyses of many food sources of
the Arctic in the 1990s. The study by Morrison et al. (1995) with the Sahtú Dene/Métis use
of traditional and market food is an example of the use of many of the methods outlined
above. Traditional food frequency data, along with the charting of seasonal variations,
revealed a high percentage of use of mammals followed by fish, birds, and berries. The
20 most consumed items of traditional foods and market foods were ranked on average
daily intake. Conclusions were that the increase in use in market foods was decreasing the
use of nutrient-dense traditional components in the diet. Dietary analysis showed that purchased foods were of inferior average nutritional quality. Further articles on the benefits
of traditional food consumption by the Dene/Métis, including that of Receveur and
Kuhnlein (1998), showed associated attributes of traditional foods (see Kuhnlein and
Chan 2000; Kuhnlein et al. 2005).
Food analysis, 24-hour recalls, and use frequency interviews show that traditional
animal foods account for significant sources of energy and nutrients in Arctic diets.
Therefore, displacing them by market products often high in fats and sugars is nutritionally
undesirable (Kuhnlein and Receveur 2007). Despite a seeming lack of plant material that
could be typical sources of vitamin C, analyses of traditional food of the Inuit revealed
many foods rich in vitamin C (Fediuk et al. 2002). Additional Arctic food samples and
dietary interview data gathered over several years form a substantial database in CINE,
demonstrating high amounts of many nutrients including vitamins A, D and E and several
B vitamins in traditional diets (Hidiroglou et al. 2008; Kuhnlein et al. 2006b). Separation
of animal parts for the analysis of the fats and organ meats proved that Arctic food sources
provide high levels of many vitamins. It was also shown that the times of the year when traditional foods were more frequently consumed were when intakes of these vitamins were
higher. Conclusions from these studies indicate that the nutrient benefits likely outweigh
the risks of potential low levels of contamination from consuming animals high in the
food chain. These studies, as well as a study on dietary adequacy in three Canadian
Arctic cultural groups (Kuhnlein et al. 2007), have emphasized the importance of continued
use of traditional foods to protect the Dene/Métis, Yukon First Nations, and Inuit from
nutrient inadequacy.
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Chapter 15 Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional Food and Nutrition Systems
International Indigenous Peoples’ Case Studies
CINE and associated research partners have documented traditional food systems of 12
community areas of Indigenous peoples located around the world. The objectives of this
combined work are to preserve the knowledge of these systems and the associated use
of species, and to call attention to the potential of traditional foods to provide nutrients
and promote health. Objectives are also to identify the importance of conservation of associated lands for food security and nutrition of those using the local foods. This is especially
important in communities living in poverty in marginalized areas. Low income and little
access to quality market foods are often associated with limited intake of foods of nutritional
quality. This need not be the case if biodiverse traditional foods, dense in nutrients, can be
produced, harvested, and utilized.
The 12 case study communities were purposely chosen for location in diverse regions
of the world. These include: Canada (Baffin Island Inuit, Gwich’in, Nuxalk); Colombia
(Ingano); Federated States of Micronesia (Pohnpei); India (Bhil, Dalit); Japan (Ainu);
Kenya (Maasai); Nigeria (Igbo); Peru (Awajún/Aguaruna); and Thailand (Karen) (see
map in Fig. 15.6).
The research with the Dalit in Zaheerabad, South India, revealed chronic energy
deficiency (CED) of 58% among Dalit mothers and incidences of vitamin A deficiency
(Schmid et al. 2006). Results indicate a reverse association of traditional food consumption
and clinical vitamin A deficiency and CED. Conclusions were that traditional food items
should be encouraged and potentially used in local health promotion activities. Schmid
et al. (2007) also investigated the comparison of villages with and without an intervention
of supplemental traditional food provided through a community-based food security
Figure 15.6
Map of 12 case study communities. Courtesy of H.V. Kuhnlein.
Reflections
263
system. The mothers with young children in the intervention villages had higher dietary
levels of energy, protein, and iron.
In research with the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria, 232 traditional food species were
identified. Many unique foods were in danger of loss from family diets (Okeke et al.
2005) and researchers suggested that efforts should be made not only to promote the use
of these nutritious food items, but to also to work to improve the methods of processing
and preservation, as many of these foods were labor-intensive for women. Okeke et al.
(2009) reported on the nutrient composition of traditional foods and associated contributions
to energy and nutrients in eight Igbo communities. While traditional foods accounted for
90% of the energy intake, the amounts of high nutrient-density foods consumed were
often low and the dietary blend of foods was often considered inadequate for good nutrition.
Variations in the environment, traditional food sources, and diet among the communities
were considerable, and illustrate the need for suitable intervention methods.
The case study with the food system of the Awajún of the Peruvian Amazon documented dietary quality with dietary intakes and recalls (Roche et al. 2007) as well as the corresponding nutrient values and diversity scores (Roche et al. 2008). Creed-Kanashiro et al.
(2005) reported 221 potential local wildlife and agricultural foods. The main sources of
energy were cassava (Manihot esculenta) and bananas (Musa sp.). Suggestions were
made to increase the nutrition of the community, especially of children, through school
projects and community activities promoting suri (a grub growing in palm hearts,
Rynchophorus palmarum), macambo seeds (Theobroma bicolor), sachamango (local
fruit, Grias peruviana), fish, wild meats (including coati, Proconiadae nasua nasua and
armadillo, Tolypeutes mataco), snails and/or palm oils. Less than 1% of the energy of consumed foods were purchased from markets, and the dietary and anthropometric data revealed
a health-promoting traditional food system that merits preservation (Roche et al. 2007).
REFLECTIONS
A wealth of information on food systems is inherent in communities of Indigenous peoples,
and can be used for their benefit in concert with their priorities. An important key to success
in the research is a well defined set of objectives that maintains perspective on the research by
community leaders and clear and meaningful scientific process. With methods noted in this
chapter, and other chapters in this volume, Indigenous leaders and scholars can contribute
useful data for local and international audiences.
Food system research can be a valuable tool for community education on food
security with local cultural resources, which is welcomed in school curricula and other
community settings. These research data are also valuable to establish salient indicators of
changing ecosystems and in tracking progress in interventions to stimulate cultural revival
and health promotion programs.
There are many variations and options for the methods noted here, and the researcher is
cautioned that without clear objectives it is possible to gather too much data—and have
information that by necessity goes unanalyzed and unreported, therefore wasting the valuable resources and time of all involved. Researchers should work closely with their colleagues in the research team to establish the overall goals, methods, and research staff
required early in the research process, and which are manageable with the resources
available.
Close communication with community leaders is valuable in many ways during the
research. Leaders and a project steering committee will give valuable assistance in
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Chapter 15 Indigenous Peoples’ Traditional Food and Nutrition Systems
monitoring the perceptions and good will of the community toward the research. Local leaders can also determine the extent of the impact of external influences on the community
food system, for which local vision is essential. These external influences could be sweeping
harbingers of change to local food supplies, and may range from global climate change to
economic development events that create jobs and income for community residents.
Economic influences are also strongly felt in market food price fluctuations driven by the
international economy, and new health care strategies for the community provided by
regional or state governments. External influences can affect the research process and results
of planned intervention programs, and must be regularly evaluated for their impact.
Indigenous peoples’ food systems are dynamic. Change is constant in the availability
and use of local species, and in how these resources provision nutrition and health for the
community over time. With close attention and documentation to what it is that people
eat, how much, and “why,” communities of Indigenous peoples can maximize their
health with their own local, cultural food. Further, by participation in environmental conservation and protection of food systems, lands, and environments, food resources will continue
to be valuable community assets for good nutrition and health.
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Chapter
16
Ethnoecology and Landscapes
LESLIE MAIN JOHNSON
Athabasca University, Athabasca, AB
IAIN DAVIDSON-HUNT
University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB
INTRODUCTION
268
LANDSCAPES AND ETHNOECOLOGY
268
PERSPECTIVE, VIEW, AND REPRESENTATION
268
LANDSCAPE STRUCTURES, PATTERNS, AND THE IMPORTANCE OF SCALE
269
LANDSCAPE MANAGEMENT
269
LANDSCAPE ETHNOECOLOGY IN ETHNOBIOLOGY
269
LAYING OUT APPROACHES TO RESEARCH IN LANDSCAPE ETHNOECOLOGY
CONCEPTS, TERMS, AND APPROACHES TO LANDSCAPE ETHNOECOLOGY
270
270
PARTS OF THE LANDSCAPE
272
KINDS AND KINDS: ONE CLASSIFICATION OR MANY?
272
FOCUS ON ANIMALS, BIRDS, AND FISH
273
SUBSTRATES
273
LANDSCAPE PROCESSES
273
WIND AND WEATHER
273
OF WATERWAYS, SEASCAPES, AND ICE-SCAPES
274
THE SACRED IN LANDSCAPE STUDIES
274
UTILITY AND LANDSCAPE KNOWLEDGE
275
NAVIGATING LANDSCAPES
275
ORIENTATION
275
THE TRAVELER’S PATH AND PLACES OF HAZARD
277
TOPONYMY
278
INTEGRATION: KNOWLEDGE OF THE LAND IN THE ROUND
278
READING ETHNOECOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES: METHODS
278
DICTIONARIES, WORDLISTS, AND RECORDED NARRATIVES
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Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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INTERVIEW METHODS
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VISUAL METHODS IN INTERVIEWS: ELICITATION AND DOCUMENTATION
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FIELD TRIPS AND ON-THE-LAND PARTICIPATION
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PLOT STUDIES, REMOTE SENSING, AND SPECIALIZED APPROACHES TO
VEGETATION AND RESOURCES
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REFERENCES
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INTRODUCTION
Ethnoecology has a complex provenance ranging from a consideration of cultural understandings of the relationships among organisms (Ford 1994) to an applied focus on the utility
of such understandings to community development and community-based resource management (Beaucage et al. 1997; Clément 1998; Posey 1984). Some authors include cognitive
and symbolic knowledge together with practices associated with organisms and their interrelationships (Toledo 1992, 2002).
Only recently have we tried to understand how people think about spatial (and temporal)
distributions of organisms and conceive of the elements of the land itself (Johnson and Hunn
2010). Early work on these questions introduced the concept of landscape into ethnoecology
(Martin 1993; Hunn with Selam 1990). The similar interest that has surfaced in the literature
on traditional ecological knowledge (Berkes et al. 1998) is often rooted in the concept of
ecosystems. Our focus in this chapter is to introduce the concept of landscape in ethnoecology. We provide methodological approaches for investigation of the processes, forms and
patterns of life from emic and etic perspectives.
LANDSCAPES AND ETHNOECOLOGY
Seemingly a straightforward term, landscape has been used in a number of contrasting ways
in ecological, geographic, anthropological, and archaeological literatures. Three broad
approaches to landscape have ethnoecological significance: landscape as perspective or
view and, related to this: landscape as representation; landscape patterns, structures, and
the significance of scale; and landscape as foundation of land management.
Perspective, View, and Representation
In the humanistic literature, “landscape” has been used in examinations of the relationship
between perspective and view, or what some scholars have termed viewscape or prospect
(Gow 1995; Tuan 1974). One contribution of this literature, which has focused on landscape
painting and photography, is that the representation (a painting or a photograph) of a landscape relates to the perspective of the viewer. Perspective is key, placing attention on the role
of the person in creating the representation from a vantage point. Humanists emphasize that
landscape is a relational concept, bringing together the viewer and the view. A landscape is a
spatial representation, which emerges out of the interrelationship among the social, cultural,
and biophysical, and is thus a useful concept in social-ecological or biocultural analysis
(Berkes et al. 2003; Maffi 2001; Stepp et al. 2002).
The aesthetics of landscape representation reflect cultural conceptions of “the natural”
and are situated in cultural, location, and historical contexts. As Humphrey (2001: 55,
Landscapes and Ethnoecology
269
following Hirsch and O’Hanlon 1995: 1) writes, “I use ‘landscape’ to refer to the meanings
imputed by local people to their cultural and physical surroundings.” Landscapes are thus
sites of contested terrain and identity formation; representation and meaning are dynamic
and processual.
The English concept of landscape is rooted in the Germanic concept of landschaft
(Olwig 1996). As noted by Olwig (1996: 633, original emphasis), “The link between customary law, the institutions embodying that law, and the people enfranchised to participate
in the making and administration of law is of fundamental importance to the root meaning of
Land in Landschaft.” The suffix in landscape, -schaft, is derived from a verb that means “to
create” or “to shape.” Taken together, landscape expresses a unity that emerges out of the
interaction between the physical morphology of a bounded territory and the values, customs,
and practices of a people. Landscapes were the nexus of customary law and cultural identities
(Olwig 1996: 633). The result in northern Europe was that a land could be incorporated into a
larger land and still maintain its character if it retained its law and customs, or what was
referred to as its landscape law (Sauer 1925).
Landscape Structures, Patterns, and the Importance
of Scale
The consideration of patterns of spatial and temporal organization that exist at spatial scales
is a second fundamental approach to landscape ethnoecology. A landscape encompasses a
range of different features such as agricultural fields, hedgerows, groves, shorelines, mountains or hills, habitations, fences, and living things in the area. Fixed structures may be
referred to as “landscape elements” by geographers.
Ecology has introduced many concepts to the understanding of the relationships of
organisms. These have ranged from more qualitative approaches to understanding communities of organisms, habitats, and ecosystems and the flows of energy and material that
sustain them, to more quantitative approaches (e.g., Forman 1982). Habitat foregrounds
the association of specific species of plants or animals with a constellation of ecological
conditions, and in some cases has been extended to a series of recognized ecological
associations called habitat-types (cf. Pfister and Arno 1980). While it is tempting to attribute
a specified scale to a “landscape,” it is useful to remember that the size of the landscape is
dependent upon the viewer and the vantage point of the viewer. Landscape, at best, is a
sliding scale: for example, the “landscape” of a vole with a restricted home range may
be orders of magnitude smaller than the relevant “landscape” of a male grizzly bear
(cf. McGarigle, no date).
Landscape Management
There is also a practical, applied reason to consider landscapes. “Landscape” has become a
dominant paradigm in the management of the environment and natural resources. By studying the ways different societies understand or construct landscape, ethnoecologists can question the ways dominant societies pattern space for their management.
Landscape Ethnoecology in Ethnobiology
In ethnobiology, a focus on landscape must be ethnoecological, comprising both domains
of meaning and knowledge of the biophysical landscape, its creatures and plants, and its
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Chapter 16 Ethnoecology and Landscapes
landforms and waterways (see Berkes 2008; Sillitoe 1996; Toledo 1992, 2002). For an
ethnobiologically pertinent focus on landscape, the appropriate scale is typically of the
order of a medium-sized drainage basin, a mountain range or island and surrounding
waters . . . the area of lands and waters comprising the homeland of a local group. In this
sense “landscape” lies between a local habitat or specific environmental type, and a large
regional or global expanse. The focus is on the knowledge of specific groups, and is
grounded in a consideration of landforms, vegetation, animal habitats, and waterways: the
biophysical environment.
Dividing lines between lands and waters, and between biological and climatological
elements, are not hard and fast, so understandings of landscape processes include winds,
weather, and seasons.
Laying out Approaches to Research in Landscape Ethnoecology
The Mexican ethnoecologist Victor Toledo was one of the first scholars to formulate an
approach to ethnoecology which integrated a functional and cosmological appreciation of
landscape with vegetation classification and management (Toledo 1992, 2002). He focused
especially on human appropriation of nature through subsistence production, and conceived
of ethnoecology as involving what people do (practice, embodied knowledge), what they
know (cognized knowledge), and their overall worldview or cosmovision, including
sacred aspects of understanding the world and the human place in it. He writes:
Ethnoecology can thus be defined as an interdisciplinary approach that explores how nature
is viewed by human groups through a screen of beliefs and knowledge, and how humans use their
images to acquire and manage natural resources. Thus, by focusing on the kosmos (the belief
system or cosmovision), the corpus (the whole repertory of knowledge or cognitive systems) and
the praxis (the set of practices), ethnoecology offers an integrative approach to the study of the
process of human appropriation of nature. . . .
—Toledo 2002: 514
A number of questions emerging from our review of landscapes and ethnoecology serve
as starting points for a research program on landscape ethnoecology. One of the first tasks is
to examine whether different societies do perceive, classify, name, and identify associations
of organisms and landscape elements at different spatial scales: habitats, “ecotopes”
(Tansley 1939), and patches, and also ideas of territory, identity, and ways of life. This
will involve contested perceptions or notions of relations to the land. There may be overlapping layers of landscape with differing boundaries, flow, or shifting areas with indefinite
boundaries. Finally, landscapes are sites of memory, which allow people to navigate
space and time on a daily basis, and sites of action in which a landscape is fashioned and
the survival of individuals and societies secured (Bender 1993, 2002; Collignon 2006;
Ingold 2000; Tilley 1994).
Concepts, Terms, and Approaches to Landscape
Ethnoecology
Landscapes were theorized in geography by Carl O. Sauer (1925) and by Yi-Fu Tuan (1974)
as humanized environments comprising both biophysical features, and human features and
perceptions. More recent theorists like Olwig (1996) have sought to bring back a “substantive” view of landscape, which includes custom, law, and social institutions, as well as space.
None of these perspectives is specifically ethnobiological or ethnoecological, though these
Landscapes and Ethnoecology
BOX 16.1
271
Concepts, Terms, and Approaches to Landscape Ethnoecology
Some researchers in landscape ethnoecology have
used habitat or habitat-type as a focus of their
analysis, such as Shepard et al.’s work with the
Matsigenka of eastern Peru, or Michael Gilmore’s
study of the Maijuna, also in Amazonian Peru
(Gilmore 2005, 2010; Shepard et al. 2001).
Other researchers have focused their analysis
around the concept of landscape element, a term
more derived from geography than ecology.
Landscape elements can include any component
of the landscape. Julia Krohmer’s (2004, 2010)
detailed analysis of Fulani landscape knowledge
is organized around landscape elements.
Veronica Strang (1997) has used the concept
of cultural landscape to examine grazier and
Aboriginal understandings of landscape in northern
Queensland, Australia. Her work touches on more
specific biological content of different areas recognized on the land, and illuminates the particular and
localized perspectives of the Aboriginal residents of
the Murray River area. Iain Davidson-Hunt and
Fikret Berkes (2003, 2010) have also described
Anishinaabe landscape understanding in terms of
a cultural landscape. In their presentation, the cultural landscape comprises numerous Anishinaabe
terms for cultural ecotopes, which include both
biophysical and hydrographic features (including
human uses), and cultural and spiritual sites. They
also elucidate understandings of succession and
seasonal timing tied to the lunar cycle through the
year, as well as how learning takes place, and
how resource sites are located. Another significant
anthropological approach to landscape, with variable ethnobiological content, is through the study
of toponyms or place names (Basso 1996; Hunn
1996; Kari and Fall 1987; Thornton 1997, 2008).
These encode a great deal in terms of the content
of place names, indications of ecological and cosmological connections, and a deep sense of the ethnoecological relationship to land. The approach to
landscape through named places and analysis of
their names can be very rich; it is also of necessity
very particularized, dependent on linguistic conventions; it may be proprietary, and the degree of
ecological information is likely to vary according
to cultural factors (Rodman 2003). Athapaskan
languages in North America, with their polysynthetic structure, verbal basis, and rich set
of locational indicators, can indicate an engaged
and located approach to landscape as locus of
story and moral values, as Keith Basso (1990a,b)
has eloquently explained.
perspectives are supportive of ethnobiological research. Similarly, the rich cultural
landscape theorizing of archaeologists is supportive of an ethnobiological perspective on
landscape, but does not actually undertake ethnobiological, or paleoethnobiological, analysis. Key works include Tilley’s Phenomenology of Landscape (1994), and two volumes
edited by Barbara Bender (1993; Bender and Winer 2001). Some scholars working on landscape perception and management describe cultural landscapes in more contemporary
settings, an approach particularly taken by those involved with heritage conservation (see
Box 16.1).
Metaphor in landscape can also be richly indicative of larger ecological relations of
peoples with landscape, as Taller de Tradiccion Oral del Cepec and Pierre Beaucage et al.
(1996) indicated for Sierra Nahua, describing a large polarity between the “good” mountain,
and the “evil” river. Joseph Bastien (1978) demonstrated for the Ayllu of Kaatan in the
Bolivian Andes that ecological and social relations between different levels of the mountain
(Mount Kaata) are conceptualized and mediated by an explicit metaphoric understanding of
the mountain as a body, with appropriate anatomical parts which function in the local ritual
cycle and are implicated in spiritual understandings of cosmology and life/death and rebirth.
At a less highly developed level, people in English may speak of parts of rivers in terms of
human anatomy (the head of a river, the mouth of a river) and Wola in New Guinea may
interpret river elements in terms of an analogy to plant anatomy, with “forks,” “base,”
and “sprout” used both for parts of plants and parts of rivers (Sillitoe 1996: 111). In
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places with significant altitudinal variation, especially in tropical high mountains, the dimension of hot – cold lands has both agronomic and symbolic or spiritual significance (Bandeira
et al. 2002; Bastien 1978; Maffi 1999; Martin 1993).
More recently, Johnson and Hunn (2010) and Hunn and Meilleur (2009) have
approached landscape from the perspective of landscape ethnoecology. Mark and co-authors
have described a subdivision of geography which they call ethnophysiography (2003, 2010).
German scholars such as Krohmer (2004, 2010) have called their approach geoecology.
These latter approaches are more explicitly ethnobiological.
Parts of the Landscape
Each language has basic terms for kinds of places on the landscape. English terms include:
for local landforms: sand dune, hill, cliff, ridge; waterbodies: pond, oxbow, waterfall, delta;
vegetation: pine barrens, willow thicket, prairie; and for glacier: pack ice, snowfield, or salt
pan (See Box 16.2). To some degree the glosses for locally named features of similar general
landscapes seem familiar; features named in the French Alps may bear some resemblance to
the types of features named in the glaciated mountains of coastal British Columbia, at least
when we deal with the common features of the physical and hydrographic realms. The names
for types of vegetation may in fact vary significantly, both because of different local climate
and flora, and because of quite different traditional ways of making a living between the two
regions. In Les Allue, Savoie (Meilleur 2010), for example, the rural folk have been smallholder farmers, with herds and orchards, while in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia,
a traditional seasonal round focused on hunting, salmon fishing, fur trapping, and berry picking directs attention to different features of the environment for the Gitksan and Witsuwit’en
(Johnson 2000, 2010b; Johnson and Hargus 2007).
Mark et al. (2010) have been interested in examining the landscape classifications of
people living in arid lands in Australia (Yindjibarndi) and in the southwestern United
States (Navajo), to look at how linguistically unrelated groups, with somewhat contrasting
ways of life, may classify similar landscapes.
Kinds and Kinds: One Classification or Many?
Aside from the question of what kinds of elements of landscapes are recognized and are
significant for local groups, there is another question: are all “kinds of place” part of a
unified system? Are there overlapping systems which intersect in some manner to produce
grids where any location can be designated by, say, vegetation and physiography?
BOX 16.2
Naming Vegetation Types
Vegetation is often named after a conspicuous or
dominant plant. A feature of Mixe naming of vegetation types is to call them a “place of _____”—
as in tsoots kam meaning “grass place,” xjkam
“oak place” (e.g., an oak forest), tsa’am ju’u kam
“blackberry place” (a blackberry patch), or tsimkam
“fern place” (a fern meadow). Cultivated fields or
orchards can also be named using the same construction, giving mkkam “place of corn” (cornfield)
or cafekam “place of coffee” (coffee grove). Many
languages exhibit this pattern; for instance, the
Kaska Dena, an Athapaskan speaking group from
northern British Columbia and the southern
Yukon in Canada, refer to a pine forest as go̧dze
tah “pine on it.” We say “cottonwood stand” in
English, meaning that cottonwood is present at
the site; see also Latin -etum as in arboretum,
“place of trees.”
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273
Focus on Animals, Birds, and Fish
Although they are mobile, mammals, birds, and fish can be important focal points in defining
and orienting ecotopes. Game trails, nesting areas, and mineral licks may be important local
ecotopes. Escape habitat for ungulates may be a factor that differentiates between different
types of alpine environment, for example grassy alpine versus “rock” mountains with steep
cliffs (Johnson 2010a). For Kaska in the southern Yukon, “fish lake” is an important kind of
lake, and elders familiar with different areas will tell you what fish are found in which lakes.
Similarly, environments such as “salmon rests” are known to peoples who live on rivers
where salmon run (cf. Johnson 2000). For Inuit and Iñupiat, detailed knowledge of seal
and walrus behavior and sites where they can be hunted inspires a vocabulary to distinguish
different sites, seasonal factors, and weather conditions (Aporta 2002; Nelson 1969).
Substrates
The degree to which soils or substrates are attended to and named appears to vary among
cultures, with cultivators such as the Maya (Anderson 2010; Atran 1993; Bandeira et al.
2001) or Wola of New Guinea (Sillitoe 1996) elaborating local classifications of soil
which have significance for cultivation. American farmers also describe soils in terms of factors such as clay content and acidity: is the soil “light” or “heavy,” “sweet” or “sour”?
Landscape Processes
In heavily vegetated environments, especially those with a high degree of plant diversity,
landscape studies may focus particularly on examining the understanding that local peoples
have of the variation of vegetation by composition and stature. One important dimension is
seral stage: the more or less regular series of vegetation types which reoccupy a site which
has been subjected to a disturbance, such as a forest fire, landslide or, more typically, land
clearance. Gary Martin’s (1993) research with the Chinantec and Mixe in the mountains of
Oaxaca, Mexico, elucidated different vegetation formations, including those that develop
through time after clearing a milpa. He also documents local understanding of the altitudinal
zonation of vegetation, and of forest regrowth.
Some terms which indicate landscape dynamics directly are terms such as witlat “slide
area,” the Witsuwit’en term for an area which has experienced land slippage, or lax en suuks,
the Gitksan term for a place which has downed logs on it, for example, an avalanche or landslide track through forested terrain. (If the logs are being transported on floodwaters, they are
still referred to as suuks). Another frequent term indicating the dynamic landscape is “burn”
(for the English example), or lax an mihlw (“place of charring”—Gitksanimax). Perhaps less
directly, terms like “oxbow” or “slough” (Kaska: tū t́ı̄li) may indicate awareness of changing
channel positions on active rivers. A sense of seasonal dynamic is expressed through terms
such as “frost pocket,” indicating a site prone to early or late frost, as a consequence of cold
air drainage, or “flood plain,” indicating sites subject to periodic or episodic inundation.
Wind and Weather
Wind and weather are not fixed; they are part of the dynamic perception of the land. In mountainous regions, upslope and downslope winds are important in landscape process and
are often named. In winter in the coast mountains of British Columbia, coastal winds and
outflow winds bring very different conditions. The Haisla considered strong outflow
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Chapter 16 Ethnoecology and Landscapes
winds life-threatening, as they could freeze the inlet surface waters solid, and blow small
boats out to sea. Working among Gwich’in in the Mackenzie Delta, Johnson quickly learned
the names for the prevailing winds, and something of their patterning (unpublished field
notes). Aporta also gives details of the significance of named winds in terms of ice dynamics
and hunter safety in the Iglulik region (Aporta 2002, 2010).
Of Waterways, Seascapes, and Ice-Scapes
Although the previous discussion has largely dealt with lands and, to a lesser degree, watercourses, the domain includes waterways, seascapes, and ice-scapes. It is partly a factor of our
deeply embedded English language landscape ethnoecology that we cannot easily indicate
home-“lands” which may include substantial areas of water. Indeed, this has had ramifications in international law, where maritime peoples such as the Torres Straits Islanders
(Mulrennan and Scott 2010), the Makah of Washington State, and the Inuit in Nunavut
have had difficulties defining and maintaining control over their traditional home regions.
Aporta (2002, 2010) describes an elaborate vocabulary for the features of moving and
stationary ice, and details named places and traditional village sites on pack ice around
Iglulik, Nunavut, Canada. Beatrice Collignon (2006) similarly describes how, during the
former seasonal round of the Inuinnait of the Central Canadian Arctic, people spent the
winter season on the pack ice and the summer on the land. Peoples of the Northwest
Coast were and are highly maritime people, frequenting coastal waters and living largely
at the productive interface of land (or river) and sea. Named places indicate environmental
conditions and resources on both land and sea (Thornton 1997, 2008). Johannes (1981) has
documented a rich knowledge of waters and water features around Pacific atolls. Access to
marine resource sites may be owned in traditional Polynesian systems (Alkire 1991).
The Sacred in Landscape Studies
One category of kinds of places on the landscape which is highly culturally specific is the
category of sacred places or areas. The defining characteristics of these sites and areas are
not derived in obvious ways from biophysical or ecological characteristics, but they have
great significance for local peoples, and often have important ecological entailments. It
has been argued that these types of sites should be considered “special purpose classes”
rather than “general purpose classes” because their defining features are not primarily biophysical (see discussion in Johnson and Hunn 2010: 17, 283). While it is true that the characteristics of sites with spiritual power are not primarily biophysical, there are entailments to
sacred sites and relationships in the behavior of local peoples, and sacred sites such as groves
may create islands of high biodiversity in otherwise heavily managed landscapes (Ellen
2010; Kunstadter 1994; Sillitoe 1996).
In Topophilia, Yi-Fu Tuan (1974) gives prominence to cosmology and spiritual
perspectives as organizing perceptions of landscape. Davidson-Hunt and Berkes (2003,
2010) found that their Anishinaabe collaborators felt that a representation of landscape
which omitted human sites and sacred sites was incomplete. Johnson found that both specific
named sites and types of sites which had spiritual power were described in the various places
she has worked. Sacred sites are implicated in the instantiation of the moral on the landscape,
and serve as a reminder of proper behavior (e.g., Shiltee Rock on the lower Peel River;
Johnson 2010b; Gwich’in Social and Cultural Institute, no date). There has also been
some research on the characterization of sacred sites: are there characteristics that predispose
a particular site to being considered a sacred site? A provocative analysis of sacred rock art
Landscapes and Ethnoecology
275
sites along the Central Arkansas River suggests the association of local sacred sites with
unusual rock forms, and connections with cosmological symbolism and local social structure (Sabo 2008).
Utility and Landscape Knowledge
Both what is named, and the correspondence or points of discontinuity between different
systems of landscape terminology are significant. There is also much tacit or embodied
knowledge of landscape; features may not be explicitly named, but the entailments or affordances of particular configurations of species, landforms, and so on are well understood by
local people (Ellen 2010; Johnson 2000, 2010a,b).
Eugene Hunn has suggested that the kinds of ecotopes recognized by local peoples tend
to be adaptive, that is, the types of sites it is needful to know and recognize to be able to make
a living successfully in a given environment (Johnson and Hunn 2010: 3, 24, 179). By this
reasoning, one might expect that people who live in arid lands may have a finely detailed
terminology for and recognition of water bodies, to locate water for people or their livestock
(e.g., Krohmer’s Fulani study 2004, 2010). By the same token, fishers or those who travel on
rivers would be expected to have a well elaborated classification of and ability to recognize
features of rivers such as “eddy,” “whirlpool,” sand bar, canyon, current, channel, backwater, and so on. Such river terms may be highly specific, and may lack direct translations
into English. The Gitksan terms for places on rivers shown in Figure 16.1 include t’aamiks
“slow side channel”; ts’oohlxs “back channel, slough, without current,” significant for fishing; and ts’iliks and ’nii lok, two terms which indicate hazardous rocks below the water surface, important for safe canoe travel.
Utility in various ways is encoded in ethnoecological awareness of landscape. One
whole class of terms relates to anthropogenic ecotopes, such as road, trail, village, camp,
field, orchard, garden, and quarry. In urbanized or densely settled environments, these
place-kinds of human creation may predominate. But even among groups who do not
evidently transform much of their landscapes, categories such as trails may be important.
For the Kaska, there are generic trails, atane (focally human travel trails), and also animal
trails, differentiated by species such as kedātane “moose trail.” Trails provide linkages
among different sites in the local landscape or homeland and may also have particular
characteristics, such as public access in places which have owned territories (e.g., the
Witsuwit’en of northwest British Columbia). As Western ecologists know, trails are lines
of disturbance as well, and may therefore have distinctive flora at their margins. Among
Athapaskan speakers in northwestern Canada, places where a hunter can gain a good
prospect of terrain where game may be encountered are recognized, taught, and named—
“lookout” in English, coënkit in Witsuwit’en (also indicating a place from which one
looks). Another widely disseminated category of place that relates to animal ecology, and
to hunting, is the salt lick, or mineral lick.
Navigating Landscapes
Orientation
Part of the way people perceive landscape is through systems of orientation. Western readers
are familiar with the directions used on standard maps, and those who are involved in
orienteering or boat navigation will also be familiar with designations like NNE or SW.
This familiar system is a set of cardinal directions, directions based on geometry, and
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Chapter 16 Ethnoecology and Landscapes
(a)
River
Island
t'aamiks
The Current Runs Through and is Slow
“Side Channel”
(b)
River
ts'oohlixs-Dead End, Deep Bay
or Slough, No Current; Back Channel
(c)
ts'iliks
Rock
Current
(d)
'nii lok When Sticks and Leaves Snag on the Rock
Rock
Current
Figure 16.1
Diagrams of some Gitksan river terms as explained by Art Mathews; (a) and (b) are map views;
(c) and (d) are side views.
usually a quadrant system, and oriented to something other than local geographic features.
Caroline Islands navigators had an elaborate star compass system which could designate 32
directions, and enabled travel between distant Polynesian atolls by outrigger canoe
(Goodenough 1996; see also Gladwin 1970). Other systems of orientation may instead be
dependent on specific landscape features, such as upslope/downslope, and upriver/downriver (Fig. 16.2). The Gitksan and Witsuwit’en peoples of British Columbia use such a
system, as do Austronesian speakers of interior Borneo. On the Hawai’ian Islands, the directions mauka (toward the mountain) and makai (toward the sea) are important in orientation.
The other aspect of Oahu geography Johnson recalls from her youth was the significance of
windward (the side of the island facing the prevailing trade winds) and leeward (the rainshadow side in the lee of the volcanic ridge that runs the length of the island). A more
subtle use of wind in orientation is found among the Inuit, where the wind system comprises
four cardinal directions based on prevailing wind directions; this system is offset from the
Western N-E-S-W, but serves for orientation in the Iglulik region (Aporta 2002).
Landscapes and Ethnoecology
277
dzilh ggiz, dzilh ïggiz
dzilh
Bare Area Mountain
witlatn,
witlat k'it
wizulh k'it
Avalanche
tl'o k'it
Open Grassy Area Track
dzilh
Mountain
Mountain Pass
wiggiz, weggiz
Pass
dzilh
Mountain
scinlegh
Timberline
Dikhina
wi begh, ′is
widïdlin
Cliff
ts’ikh
krumholz
Goat Bedding Area
Iho
Glacier
tsë hadit'ay
“Rock Sticks Out”
(for moraine)
Iho tlët
Glacier Front
tiltlat,
wi tiltlat
Rockslide
tsë
Boulders
Large
Rocks
dicin tah, dic'ah
“Forest or Bush”
yikhina
dikwanik
c'ikwah
biyë
Creekside
binLake
River
or Stream
c'ikwah c'ikwah yez
c'ikwats
Creek tacëk, bicek
Widzin kwah
Bulkley River
Creek Mouth
tl'o k'it
nu
Open Grassy Area Island
diyik
An Idealized Witsuwit'en Landscape
Canyon
bis k'it
River Bank
Bulkley Valley Area
Witsuwit'en Landscape Terms in Boldface
English Glosses for Witsuwit'en Terms
c'iye (k'it), tl'otl'is ((k'it)
“Big Meadow” Swamp
Hill
cis
bin ts'anli
tezdli
Lake Outlet
Lake bin
Hill
cis
Slope
cis kit
Swamp or Meadow
ts'alh k'ët,witsil k'it,
c'ato', lht'ato', ciye
Figure 16.2 Dene orientation: a Witsuwit’en example (modified from Trail of Story, Traveller’s Path,
Athabasca University Press; 2010).
The Traveler’s Path and Places of Hazard
Landscape knowledge can be organized as a series of paths or trails, spotted with significant
resource areas, camp sites, and other named features. The genre of toponymic song is a particularly strong example of this local way of organizing landscape knowledge, and has been
described for Paiute in the arid west (Fowler 2010), Sahaptin of the Columbia Basin (Hunn
1996), Seri (Comcáac) of the Gulf of California (Monti 2002, 2003), and Inuinnait of the
Canadian Arctic (Collignon 2006). Navigation, location of resource sites, and especially
locations of places of travel hazard are evident functions of these songs. Places of travel
hazard are prominent in narratives about moving on the land as well. Legat et al. (1995:
15) comment that toponyms on waterways and topographic features in the taiga and
tundra in the Tłi˛cho˛ area of Canada’s Northwest Territories appear to indicate features significant for travel, while place names for land areas are more likely to be focused on available
biological resources. Their writing in patterns associated with place names suggests that
names that contain topographic and water flow terms have the primary purpose of describing
safe understandable travel routes, whereas the primary purpose of the place names containing biological terms seem to indicate locations with various resources or biodiversity. David
Pentland’s (1975) pioneering study in northern Algonquian ethnocartography shows rivers
as travel routes, highlighting both fish resources and travel hazards. The intent and purpose
of the maps is clearly different from maps in the European tradition, as large geographic features which are not on the routes of interest are omitted, but detailed description of travel
hazards and significant fishing sites along the rivers are provided, and alternative routes
which avoid impassible sections are included. A more recent examination of route orientations and mental maps is found in Istomin and Dwyer (2009). One of the most interesting
aspects of their study shows striking contrasts between two adjacent reindeer herding groups
in Russia: the Komi orient primarily along fixed travel routes, while the Nenets saw their
land as set of specified areas, within which a nested set of specific environments and
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named places was mapped. Istomin and Dwyer also refer to gender differences in orientation,
which may reflect different gender roles in society, showing that a great deal of empirical
research on wayfinding and how people understand landscapes remains to be done.
Toponymy
In much of everyday experience, people think, speak, and orient action toward specific
named places. Maori biologist Mere Roberts responded to a question about Maori landscape
terms some years ago with the comment that she thought that specific named places were the
way that her people oriented toward land. Documentation and study of named sites can be
revealing of specific knowledge of resource economies, and of regional history and cosmology (Fowler 2010; Hunn 1996). Named places can be very significant in long distance travel
and orientation as landmarks, as James Kari has documented for Alaskan Athapaskan speakers (Kari 1989; Kari and Fall 1987). Place naming can be a genre of oral literature as well,
demonstrating deep connections with land and a kind of mental travel (Fowler 2010; Hunn
1996; Thornton 1997, 2008), and for groups like the Gitksan, naming the places and knowing the stories associated with these sites demonstrates familiarity with the boundaries of
owned group territories (Johnson 2010b). Named sites can also instantiate identity, and
reclaiming space and reaffirming connection to territory may be accomplished through the
restoration of local or Indigenous names, either on maps (e.g., Collignon 2006; MüllerWille 1993), or by signage literally on the ground (Schreyer 2006).
Integration: Knowledge of the Land in the Round
It is a cliché to say that traditional knowledge is holistic. The landscape and those who dwell
there are in some sense mutually constituting (Ingold 1993: 162, citing Inglis 1977: 489).
Many Indigenous societies focus on relationships and connections among entities and
inhabitants of landscapes, and with the humans who make the region their home. Agency
is distributed. People conceive of plants, animals, and even landforms and waterways as
having awareness and the ability to act, facilitating human welfare when appropriate behavior is followed, and challenging human will when it is not. David Anderson (2000) has
termed this “sentient ecology.” Richard Nelson (1983) described the boreal forest homeland
of the Koyukon as “the watchful world.”
Reading Ethnoecological Landscapes: Methods
It is difficult to collect a “voucher” specimen of a river, pond, or talus slope, though photographs can serve. Interviews and dictionary work, if not checked against actual locations, can
create inaccurate correspondences or understandings of local knowledge. Initial interviews
or focus groups can also be useful, though translation of terms across language boundaries
without double-checking their referents can create misunderstandings. Field trips or participant observation on the land are deeper ways to discover and document culturally significant
ecotopes and toponyms. A special kind of field trip is the plot study, which combines
Western scientific vegetation sampling methods with interview work. Visual documentation
and visual elicitation are important in landscape research; mapping, with or without recent
technological tools like GPS, satellite photos, and GIS is a fundamental tool. Collaborative
methodologies, where researchers work closely with communities, may use most of these
methods, and are particularly well suited to a rich presentation of local understanding of
landscape.
Landscapes and Ethnoecology
279
Dictionaries, Wordlists, and Recorded Narratives
Dictionaries and wordlists can be quite useful initial points in landscape research in a local
area (Mark et al. 2010). Examining dictionaries and vocabularies can give a sense of the
range of features that may be recognized, and their general nature, as well as indications
of grammatical construction of place and landscape terms. Such materials are natural beginning places for follow-up research through interviews, focus groups, and field trips.
Significant is the lack of cultural context inherent in dictionaries and wordlists. Such
materials may also be lacking or very rudimentary for the particular area and group one is
working with.
A similar approach is the analysis of lists of toponyms for “place kind generics,” a
method used Kari and Fall (1987) and by Hunn (2008). Place names are often composed
of a specific name coupled with a place-kind term, such as “Sherwood Forest,” or
“San Francisco Bay.”
One can go over a series of recorded narratives, either in the original language or in
translation, to list the references to place names and settings for actions or activities to
make a preliminary listing of kinds of places named, types of place names, and kinds of
place recognized or described. The cultural content of such sources is high, though the original context of the narrative may not be apparent from the recorded materials.
Interview Methods
An interview can be directed through use of maps or visual materials such as photographs,
or by reference to previous work. Recording of interview materials may be by written
notes, or by audio- and or video-recording. Unless the researcher is very conversant
with the local language and expert at accurate transcription of terms, it is probably best
to use some kind of recording device to allow for accurate transcription by the researcher
at a later date, or by a specialized linguist. It may be difficult to elicit generic landscape
terms through such natural questions as “Where do you find cow parsnip?” Working in
Savoie, Brien Meilleur found that if he asked where would you find . . ., his informants
gave specific sites. He had to develop a specific question frame to elicit the terms
for Savoyard generic ecotopes, asking instead where would one find (plant name)
(Meilleur 2010).
Interviews can be focused around animal or plant habitats. This will likely yield ecotopes of high biological relevance. Terms for other landscape features, such as landforms
and waterways, may be more readily elicited through travel narratives.
An outgrowth of interview techniques is the group interview, or focus group, for
example, a topical community meeting of elders or knowledgeable people. The dynamics
of such group settings may facilitate memory, add to consultant comfort, and allow crosschecking of data, but group effects can also silence some voices, perhaps giving more
play to dominant subgroups within the community, or to one gender or age group.
Visual Methods in Interviews: Elicitation and Documentation
If the researcher is familiar with the local region and has some sense of important or prominent local places or place-kinds, he or she can use photographic materials or diagrammatic
drawings in eliciting landscape terms, discussions of relationships of different ecotopes or
landscape elements, or narratives about specific places. Johnson has used such methods
when working with Gitksan and Witsuwit’en elders, building on a number of years of
280
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prior ethnobotanical research and travel in the region. An initial attempt to create a set of
appropriate photographs for a similar approach in the Yukon was less successful, both
because of her lack of deep familiarity with the region, and because her consultants were
unused to looking at photographs of landforms and generic vegetation types. A special
form of visual methodology involves mapping; one can work from existing maps, such as
topographic or forest district maps, if the consultants are familiar with such maps; otherwise
the consultant or interviewer may record spatial relationships of landscape features or travel
routes through sketch maps. Vitebsky (2005: 319) includes an Eveny map of reindeer range
which is quite remarkable. A detailed methodology involving “map biographies” has been
developed for Land Use and Occupancy Studies in Canada (Freeman 1976; Tobias 2000).
Such maps may contain significant information about spatial distribution of subsistence
activities, seasonal camp areas, and travel trails, and can be used to examine changes in
the use of the landscape over time (see Brody 1988; Weinstein 1992).
Field Trips and On-the-Land Participation
Field trips and participant observation are important methods of learning about landscape.
A field trip may be a day excursion or encampment with a knowledgeable person or
group of knowledgeable people, or it may involve shared activities on the land. Field trips
may involve teams of researchers, including perhaps students or community members,
and allow some specialization of functions. Some may concentrate on participating in activities or speaking with local teachers, while others may be concerned with photographic or
video documentation, taking GPS data, or collecting specimens.
Field trips allow a sense of the context of ethnoecological knowledge about landscape
as well as enabling cross-checking and documentation of specific places and of examples
of typical ecotopes. In field trips documentation of places, place-kinds, activities, and associated narratives may all be recorded. Associations of place may be linked both to personal
life history and to memory of past activities, and to the mythic and moral realms. Such
associations may also have significance in the documentation of land rights through records
of past and present use. Some types of narratives are specifically associated with place, and
may be told only, or most frequently, on the land, in place (e.g., Palmer 2006). It is a real,
and often rare, opportunity to record such narratives (assuming it is considered appropriate
in the context of the research project) and here audio or video recording on site can be
invaluable.
Plot Studies, Remote Sensing, and Specialized Approaches to
Vegetation and Resources
Plot studies are one field method of investigating the nature and knowledge of vegetation
communities. Researchers typically work together with local people who have knowledge
of the plants and other aspects of the local region to scientifically sample the plants present
in a plot of specific area, recording ecological data such as special names, locations, and
other plant data, together with local knowledge of names and uses of species found
within the plot and local classification of the site type. Studies by Bernstein et al. (1997),
Ellen (2007), and Paul Sillitoe (1996) demonstrate the effectiveness of plot study methods.
Related work by Shepard et al. (2002), Abraao et al. (2010), and Shepard et al. (2004) shows
how plot studies can be combined with techniques of ordination, and comparison with vegetation stratification through remote sensing.
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River, Yukon; 1992.
Chapter
17
Traditional Resource and
Environmental Management
CATHERINE S. FOWLER
Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, Nevada
DANA LEPOFSKY
Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University Burnaby, BC, Canada
INTRODUCTION
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DEFINING TRADITIONAL RESOURCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
286
THE HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT OF TREM
287
COMMON PRACTICES
288
BURNING
288
DIGGING AND TILLING
290
PRUNING, COPPICING, AND POLLARDING
290
WEEDING AND CLEANING
290
TRANSPLANTING
290
SELECTIVE HARVESTING AND REPLANTING
291
ENCLOSURES
292
MULCHING AND FERTILIZING
292
DOCUMENTING TREM
292
TREM IN CONTEXT
294
THE FUTURE OF TREM
295
REFERENCES
301
INTRODUCTION
Since the mid-1980s, ethnobiologists have focused on documenting Indigenous systems of
environmental and resource management, especially among the world’s subsistence-based
Ethnobiology. Edited by E. N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner
# 2011 Wiley-Blackwell. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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peoples. Ethnobiologists recognize that groups who earn a living directly from their surroundings have significant, long-term knowledge about their environments and the resources
within them. This ecological knowledge along with attendant procedures for working
with local resources is not only of interest in and of itself, but because it may hold keys to
sustainable practices. This local knowledge is held by individuals, collectively by families,
and by communities. It can be expressed overtly through practices that are mandated through
political or religious requirements, or more covertly codified in general attitudes and casual
acts that affect everyday behavior.
In this chapter, we explore ways in which peoples tend, steward, or otherwise manage
their environments and resources and how ethnobiologists study and document these activities. We look at examples of activities still in practice, some from the recent past, and some
from the distant past as revealed primarily through archaeology. Our examples are primarily
North American because we are most familiar with that literature, but the practices and
knowledge we discuss have been applied in similar environments worldwide. We refer to
these activities and knowledge collectively as “traditional resource and environmental management” (TREM). TREM is defined as the application of traditional ecological knowledge
to maintain or enhance the abundance, diversity, and/or availability of natural resources
or ecosystems.
We discuss common practices for managing plants and animals: burning, tillage and
other methods of soil enhancement, pruning, weeding, transplanting, selective harvesting
and replanting, and enclosures. We focus on the management of non-domesticated plants
and animals. However, since human– landscape interactions form a continuum from
casual management to highly intensive agro-ecosystems, many practices we discuss are
common to a wide range of subsistence strategies.
DEFINING TRADITIONAL RESOURCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL
MANAGEMENT
Many concepts, terms, and acronyms are used in discussions about TREM (see M.K.
Anderson 2005; Deur and Turner 2005a; Menzies 2006, for sample bibliographies). The
concept that underlies and links all aspects of these practices is “traditional ecological
knowledge” (TEK). TEK is formally defined as “a cumulative body of knowledge, practice,
and belief, evolving by adaptive processes and handed down through generations, by cultural
transmission about the relationship of living beings (including humans) with one another
and with their environment” (Berkes 2009: 8). Importantly, ecological knowledge, including
that of managing land and resources, is based on direct observations of and interactions with
an environment. This knowledge developed over time, and was passed down through the
generations. TEK typically refers to knowledge held by non-industrial (often called traditional) peoples who observe and participate daily in the workings of their environments.
However, it can also be applied to ecological knowledge held by local peoples who are
modern farmers and ranchers. It is ecological knowledge about a particular environment
and its resources that becomes the basis for traditional resource management systems.
Many scholars have pointed out differences between traditional (TEK and TREM)
and Western scientific ways of viewing the natural world (Anderson 1996; Berkes 2009;
Turner et al. 2000; but see Lertzman 2009). A fundamental difference is the common
Western perception that people are distinct from the natural world, not part of it. Even anthropological and ecological models that include humans in ecosystems sometimes conceptualize human interactions with the environment as distinct from other life forms (Crumley
1994; Moran 1996). This Western worldview stands in sharp contrast to that of many
The Historical and Social Context of Trem
287
Indigenous peoples, who see non-human life forms as family members who, like all kin,
should be treated properly and respectfully (Atleo 2005; Ellen and Fukui 1996). From
this more integrated perspective, interactions with the natural world, for example, “managing
resources”, cannot easily be separated from cultural beliefs and practices (M.K. Anderson
2005; Cruikshank 2005; Turner et al. 2000). To separate and compartmentalize is to lose
track of the interconnections, of the true and comprehensive ecosystems, and what
E. Anderson (1996) calls “ecologies of the heart”.
Some have argued that discussing management practices as mechanical, discrete acts is
antithetical to the spirit of what traditional peoples do and feel. “Management” can misrepresent Indigenous attitudes in that it implies “control” over resources and lands that they
do not conceive. Several researchers have suggested that terms such as “stewardship”, “custodianship”, or “husbandry/wifery” better capture the nature of these Indigenous systems,
and that instead of management, “tending”, “caring for”, “taking care of”, “working
with”, or like forms are better descriptors of Indigenous attitudes and practices
(M.K. Anderson 2005; Atleo 2005; Nabhan 1997).
TEK and TREM can have great time depth, but are by no means static. Ecological
knowledge can change as other aspects of cultures and their environments change. It is
for this reason that ecological knowledge embodied in TREM can be applied in today’s
contexts, and that documenting currently held ecological knowledge and management
strategies helps us understand past human –environmental relations.
THE HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT OF TREM
Outside observers have long misunderstood the relationship of Indigenous peoples to their
environments. Misconceptions have become reified over time, and used to justify the appropriation of land and other rights from Indigenous peoples (Deur and Turner 2005b). There
are three archetypical views about how traditional peoples interact with their environments:
(1) they have few or no interactions with or impact on their surrounding environments;
(2) they are responsible for severe environmental degradation worldwide; or (3) they live
in ecological balance with their surroundings by consciously practicing resource management and conservation.
The view that Indigenous peoples had little interaction with their environment is pervasive in the earliest encounters between Europeans and Indigenous peoples (Denevan 1992).
In Polynesia, for instance, Europeans felt that they were witnessing Edenic perfection, where
environments were ever-bountiful and required little human manipulation (Lepofsky 1999).
In reality, the islands were highly managed agroecosystems; the “natural” bounty was the
result of centuries of human landscape manipulation (Lepofsky 2011). However, because
management systems had few parallels in Europe, managed land and seascapes were seen
as natural. Such early misconceptions have left a legacy of assumptions about human –
environment interactions, which influence how we conceptualize and manage “wilderness”
today (Cronon 1995; Hunn et al. 2003).
Other discussions of human – environmental interactions focus on whether Indigenous
peoples were degraders or adept managers of land and resources (Ellen and Fukui 1996;
Harkin and Lewis 2007). Support for the former view comes largely from archaeological
and paleoecological records, which document dramatic and sometimes devastating
human-caused alterations to the landscape (Diamond 2005; Kirch and Hunt 1997).
Support for the adept manager model largely comes from ethnobiologists working closely
with Indigenous communities who know how to manage and enhance biological productivity and diversity (Balée and Erickson 2006).
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When the data are considered dispassionately, it is clear that none of the three models is
entirely true. Although there is a continuum of intensity of how peoples interact with their
environment, many traditional peoples have had intensive interaction with their surroundings. Furthermore, even within a cultural group, people are neither exclusively degraders
nor completely effective managers. This is reflected in the archaeological record which provides examples not only of human-caused ecological “damage”, but also long-term management of resources and landscapes. In fact, environmental depletion may be linked to the
development of TREM among some people (Berkes and Turner 2006). To some extent,
many archaeologists have operated under a paradigm of “degradation” rather than effective
management, and may have overlooked subtle evidence of past resource management (Ford
and Nigh 2009; Weiser and Lepofsky 2009). As ethnobiologists, we need to allow for the
full spectrum of potential human interactions with their environments. A solid understanding
of the social and ecological contexts of past management successes and failures should
provide the knowledge needed to manage our resources today (Hames 2007).
COMMON PRACTICES
Management practices encompassed within TREM are found worldwide and encompass a
range of behaviors that are applied to plants and animals, often with predictable ecological
consequences (Table 17.1). Practices are most often applied to specific organisms, or populations of organisms, although they may have larger cumulative community effects. These
practices are not mutually exclusive and all can be applied at local and landscape scales
(M.K. Anderson 2005; Peacock and Turner 2000). Tied to these practices are other interrelated cultural factors such as technology and the frequency, timing, and intensity of practices (M.K. Anderson 2005: 128 – 34). Many of these factors are interrelated and alterations
in one might influence the outcome of another. For example, if a technology becomes more
efficient, and the intensity of its related activity is not reduced, the target resource could be
overtaxed. Cultural practices, such as religious activities, kinship and political features, and
land tenure systems, can also affect land and resource management (see Section 6, below).
Burning
Burning is the best known and most widely applied TREM practice, with some form of fire
management occurring worldwide. The regenerative power of landscape fires, although not
always immediately apparent, is often visible within months to a year, provided the original
fire was not so hot as to damage root stocks or to kill or permanently displace animals. Some
burns are large scale, for example in grasslands where they might cover many square miles,
but many are smaller—10 –50 acres—where they create a patchwork of biodiversity (Fowler
2000; Lewis 1973; Trusler and Johnson 2008). Large-scale fires are set to drive game or to
“freshen” or “renew” the country. Renewed growth then attracts more game (see Case
Studies 17.1 and 17.2). Until recently, many North American Indigenous peoples burned
certain woody perennials to obtain straight, strong fibers for basketry and building, and a
long list of annuals and perennials (many pre-adapted to fire) to increase the production
of foods (berries, tubers, leafy greens) and medicines (E. Anderson 2005; M.K. Anderson
2005; Hogdson 2000; Turner 1999). Swidden farmers also practice an intensive form of
burning in their field preparation (Case Study 17.3). Even when burning targeted local populations of species, such fires could influence biological communities across the landscape.
Common Practices
289
Table 17.1 Management Practices and their Ecological Effects1
Management practice
Burning
Digging and tilling
Pruning
Coppicing
Weeding and cleaning
Transplanting
Selective harvesting and
replanting
Enclosures
Mulching and fertilizing
Potential ecological effects2
† Changes in fire regimes (seasonality, frequency, patch size) reduces
competition
† Discourages pests
† Accelerates nutrient cycling
† Blackened ground encourages spring growth
† Promotes early successional vegetation and associated animals;
selects for annuals and ephemerals
† Synchronization of fruiting
† Shifts in vegetation mosaics; creates openings
† Promotes fire-tolerant, shade-intolerant taxa
† Dispersal of propagules
† Recycles nutrients
† Aerates soil
† Increases moisture-holding ability
† Possible reduction of allelopathy (negative below-ground plant-toplant interactions)
† Increase investment in fruit production
† Stimulates vegetative reproduction, growth of roots and rhizomes,
and flowering and seed production
† Reduces interspecies competition
† Allows quicker moisture penetration
† Decreases chances or spread of fire
† Geographic range extensions
† Dispersal of propagules
† Establishes new local populations
† Changes in plant morphology and genetics
† Reduces intraspecies competition
† Local dispersal of propagules
† Maintains productivity in local populations
† Isolates propagules from rest of breeding population
† Increases soil nitrogen, phosphorous, and other nutrients; increases
soil temperature.
1
Modified from Turner and Peacock (2005, and references within) and Lepofsky and Lertzman (2008).
Only positive ecological effects are listed here, but in some cases there is the potential for negative ecological
effects. For instance, whereas burning releases nitrogen into the soil, it can also result in a net loss of nitrogen in the
system. Similarly, whereas blackened earth can encourage spring growth, it can overly warm soils in the summer
and this may kill plants. Finally, while digging can reduce allelopathic interactions it may also interrupt positive
below-ground plant-to-plant interaction.
2
To minimize destruction and maximize regeneration, fires were set only in particular
seasons and intervals. Native Californians (M.K. Anderson 2005), Australians and North
American Plains groups (Lewis 1991, 1993) and British Columbian groups (GottesfeldJohnson 1994; Lepofsky et al. 2005; Turner 1999) set fires at well timed and ecologically
sound intervals—every two to three years—usually just before a period of increased precipitation or marked cooling. Fuel loads are kept low with frequent burning. This reduces high
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intensity fires that could damage underground plant parts, and results in fires that can be
more easily controlled.
Digging and Tilling
Digging and tilling involve moving soil, rocks, and other debris from an area with important
underground resources (plants, burrowing animals). Digging is part of the process of collecting plant foods such as root vegetables, or other underground parts used as medicines or
manufactures (e.g., roots, tubers, rhizomes for basketry, lacings). Digging may also extract
burrowing animals like ground squirrels or lizards from their dens. Tilling occurs when
diggers go beyond these immediate goals and clean or clear beds in preparation for planting
seeds or propagules. Digging and tilling are accomplished with simple tools like digging
sticks or pry bars, although agriculturalists develop devices such as plows to accomplish
larger goals.
Digging and tilling influence the productivity of resources, and in particular increase
plant vigor and size by aerating the soil and increasing its moisture-holding capacity. In contrast, unharvested or untended patches become overgrown and underground plant parts
become less productive and difficult to harvest. Like burning, tilling attracts game to freshly
dug patches, which in turn can provide additional food and resources.
Pruning, Coppicing, and Pollarding
Pruning is the removal of dead and living material from a plant to change its shape or
enhance its production. Coppicing is the regular cutting back of growth, usually to ground
level, to promote vigorous new growth and secondarily to encourage forage for game.
Pollarding refers to the coppicing of trunks, specifically. Coppicing is an age-old woodland
management method in Europe, and in North America it is used to obtain desired lengths and
strengths of basketry fibers (Barkham 1992; Fig. 17.1). Pruning is also a way to get fuel
wood in areas where burnable products are scarce (Case Study 17.2).
Weeding and Cleaning
Weeding involves removing unwanted plants from around valued plants by cutting, pulling,
and digging. Weeding has ecological consequences, including reducing competition. In
some situations weeding may produce a “first harvest” of edible greens, while in others,
weeds may be turned into mulch (Case Studies 17.4 and 17.2). The Kwakwaka’wakw of
British Columbia removed grasses, rushes, and sedges from their estuarine root plots,
fostering better growth of springbank clover, Pacific silverweed, and other plants, and
also protected the plants from herbivory by hunting waterfowl attracted to these lush plots
(Case Study 17.4). The application of natural pesticides and companion planting also minimize the growth of unwanted plants and increases productivity of desired ones (Balée 1994).
Transplanting
Transplanting involves purposefully introducing a species from one wild setting and/or
habitat to another, often to extend its range or to replenish a depleted population.
Translocation of plants is done by sowing seed or other propagules in new places, or by physically moving specimens. For animals, transplanting involves moving at least a breeding
pair, and/or eggs in the case of fish. Non-agricultural peoples and subsistence farmers
Common Practices
291
Figure 17.1 Northern Paiute of Nevada collecting willow for basketry. The main photo shows the trimming
and coppicing process while the insert figure is of straight stems collected the following year. Photographs by
Margaret Wheat, courtesy of Special Collections, Reno Library, University of Nevada; ca. 1960.
commonly moved plants and animals (Case Study 17.3). For example, the Comcáac, or Seri,
of Mexico transplanted saguaro cacti to mark the birthplaces of their children (Felger and
Moser 1985). They also moved iguanas and chuckwallas from mainland locations onto
the Midriff Islands of the Sea of Cortez (Nabhan 2000).
Transplanting is usually distinguished from non-purposeful range extensions caused
by human activities such as accidental transporting or discard of viable plant parts.
However, it is sometimes difficult to determine whether disjunct distributions resulted
from deliberate or inadvertent human agency. Transplanting has resulted in disjunct plant
and animal populations that have long puzzled biogeographers (Nabhan 2000).
Selective Harvesting and Replanting
For varied reasons, traditional peoples often selectively harvest resources for food and manufacturing. Such practices may be coupled with replanting plant parts that are too small or
not ready or otherwise suitable for harvest. Age, sex (of animals), condition, abundance
of the resource, and gender of the gatherer can guide harvesting choices. Sometimes there
are culturally prescribed harvesting formulae (e.g., harvest a maximum number, take
every other one, take only at a full moon, never in winter). For example, the Maidu of
California cut ponderosa pine roots for baskets from opposite sides of the tree in successive
years (M.K. Anderson 2005: 128). At other times, more general principles guide harvesting,
such as not taking more than you can use immediately, or never taking all. Rules may extend
to replanting small plant bulbs or corms, slips from the root, or part of the crown of a
perennial. Nets and other capture devices are sometimes designed to select (and thus regulate) the size class or species of a harvest (Case Study 17.4). Selecting for larger seed size,
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synchronous ripening, shattering, and other features were important for plant domestication
(Harlan 1995), as were docility, size, and weight for animals (Zeder et al. 2005). In some
cases, plant tending and animal harvesting went hand in hand, as is the case with “garden
hunting” (Linares 1976).
Enclosures
Enclosures are devices for confining resources, and are generally associated with domestication. However, non-domesticated plants are sometimes contained within structured
spaces (gardens), where they are encouraged, including through weeding and mulching
(Case Study 17.4). Enclosures for animals include traps and nets, especially those designed
to keep the catch alive until it is harvested (Case Study 17.4). An example of such enclosures
are the “caterpillar trenches” of the Mono Lake and Owens Valley Paiute peoples. These
circular structures around Jeffrey pines trapped caterpillars of the Pandora moth (Fowler
and Walter 1986).
Mulching and Fertilizing
The addition of mulch and natural fertilizers to soils increases productivity by adding
nutrients and/or increasing soil temperature (Balee 1994). Warmer soils, which are the
result of increased biological activity, can extend the growing season (Waddell 1972).
Mulch is often composed of kitchen waste and other gathered organics (Case Study 17.4)
and applied to tended plants in enclosures or gardens and fields. Among the Ancestral
Puebloans of New Mexico, rocks are added to the soil to warm it, prevent weeds, and
retain moisture (Ford 2000).
DOCUMENTING TREM
Capturing the holistic nature of TREM systems involves applying diverse methods and
approaches (Fig. 17.2; see Martin 1995 and Chapters 5, 9, 11, 16 and 18, 2011). When studying TREM of the present or recent past, ethnobiologists generally collect data through consultant interviews combined with field visits and observations of TREM in action. Field
observations are critical because some TREM activities may be so ingrained that people
cannot describe them in the abstract. Furthermore, they may not realize that these activities
actually constitute “management”, but rather see them in coordination with other aspects of
their lives, such as religious observances.
Examining data collected by previous field workers can provide insights into TREM.
For example, place names collected long ago can indicate areas where TREM activities
took place, or where resources once occurred but are no longer evident (GottesfeldJohnson 1994; Hunn 1990; Kari and Fall 2003). Indigenous languages often contain
unique vocabulary that refers to TREM practices or anthropogenic landscapes (Norton
et al. 1999). Old photographs often show the effects of ecological change such as fire
suppression, including in environments that consultants may not remember were burned
(Hunn 1990: 130– 31). These, as well as early documents (maps, letters, agency reports),
sometimes reveal practices that might be part of TREM strategies. Using land surveys
prior to non-Indian settlement, Lawton et al. (1976) were able to identify stream capture
and diversions by Owens Valley Paiute people. These surveys better documented irrigation
of wild plants than did the late 1920s ethnographic interviews. Finally, ethnohistoric
Documenting Trem
Linguistics
Texts, Photos
293
Oral Histories
Interviews
Place Names
Ethnography
Zooarchaeology
Lake & Soil Pollen &
Macrofossil Records
Ancient DNA
Archaeology
TREM
Paleoecology
Archaeobotany
Field Survey &
Mapping
Tree Rings & Fire
Scars
Lake & Soil Charcoal
Records
Ecology
Censuses
Field
Observations
Soil Morphology
Experimental
Plots
Figure 17.2 Sources of data used to describe TREM systems. See Lepofsky and Lertzman (2008) for more
detailed treatment of the archaeological and paleoecological data sources. Modified from Lepofsky and Lertzman
(2008).
documents that record observations prior to extensive European contact are valuable sources.
However, these sources are sometimes of limited value because many European explorers
and settlers failed to recognize traditional management systems for what they were.
Increasingly, ethnobiologists combine ethnographic data with ecological methods to
document resource management systems. Researchers use modern plant and animal distributions as evidence of past resource and habitat manipulation and range extensions
(Deur 1999, 2000). Soil analyses allow assessment of the ecological effects of practices
such as mulching and tilling. Ethnobiologists also use knowledge from elders to design
field experiments to quantify changes in resource abundance and distribution under traditional management (Beckwith 2004). Such experiments can provide the ecological details
needed to incorporate traditional management methods into modern management regimes.
Although less often applied, archaeological and paleoecological methods have a considerable amount to offer to the documentation of TREM (Lepofsky and Lertzman 2008).
Since traditional management systems evolved through time, changing as social and political
contexts changed, we cannot simply record present or remembered systems and expect to
understand these changes. Furthermore, given the dramatic alterations in natural and cultural
landscapes since the industrial era, and losses in Indigenous knowledge, archaeological or
paleoecological studies may be the only way to document many past management systems.
Archaeological and paleoecological records can provide insights into past human
manipulation and landscape management (see Chapter 11, 2011). These records can document fires or other disturbances that occurred more frequently than expected from natural
causes, and fires that occurred outside naturally fire-prone ecosystems or fire seasons.
Pollen, zooarchaeological, and paleoethnobotanical evidence of non-local species can
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provide evidence of transplanting or tending of taxa outside their natural distributions,
whereas changes in morphology, genetics, or abundance in archaeological plant or animal
remains can provide evidence of selective harvesting and methods to enhance production.
Finally, archaeological features such as garden plots and terraces can provide information
on the nature and extent of ancient landscape modifications.
However, there are limitations on the inferences about past management that can
be drawn from archaeological and paleoecological records. First, many traditional management practices to some extent mimic natural ecological processes and/or were designed to
minimize excessive disturbances. Thus, it can be difficult to detect ancient management
practices in archaeological and paleoecological records or to distinguish management
from natural processes (e.g., natural versus human-set fires where natural fire frequencies
are very high; Lepofsky et al. 2005).
Secondly, it may be difficult to determine whether observed past ecological changes
were the result of deliberate or inadvertent human actions. That is, in studying TREM, we
are often interested in how people used their ecological knowledge to interact purposively
with their environment. However, we may never be able to determine if, for instance,
disjunct distributions of economically important plants are the result of deliberate or
inadvertent human transport (Minnis and Plog 1976).
The final set of reasons limiting inferences about past resource management relates to
limitations of archaeological and paleoecological determinations more broadly. These
methods will generally be biased towards recording significant ecological changes and
landscape modifications, and long-term human behavior. Conversely, the record will be
largely silent about the actions of individuals, or the less tangible aspects of TREM, such
as detailed ecological knowledge, rituals, and attitudes toward the natural world.
TREM IN CONTEXT
For most people, TREM is made up of the routine activities of daily life. Occasionally
other purposeful acts are involved, such as burning not associated with harvesting, or building enclosures, but much TREM is not so consciously scheduled. Given that these activities
reach back many generations, and specific motivations may be lost in time, some people
continue their routines without much thought (Berkes and Turner 2006). What may guide
activities is a general ethic that can be voiced, such as the Timbisha Shoshone who say
“we live by them”, implying the reciprocal obligations that people have with their lands
and resources (Case Study 17.2). Older Timbisha people also monitor bird songs, look
for new seedlings, and check on the young of animals as signs of environmental health.
When harvests are scarce, they, like many traditional peoples, look to internal causes,
such as breaking religious or societal rules, rather than external explanations.
There are also examples of TREM activities that are more deeply imbedded in religion
and ritual calendars. Among the Pueblo peoples of the American Southwest, the ritual calendar controls many activities associated with plants and animals. Plants and animals have
symbolic roles in kinship and are frequently depicted in dances, songs, prayers, oral tradition, and on ritual objects (Robbins et al. 1916; Whiting 1934). Messages about them
are communicated in informal and formal settings, absorbed by children, and reinforced
in adults. E. Anderson (1996) provides additional examples and an amplified discussion
of the role of religion in environmental management and resource conservation in China,
Mexico, and the Northwest Coast. He argues not only for religion’s significant role in
The Future of Trem
295
guiding behavior but also in providing people with the emotional investment to sustain these
practices in the face of modernization and culture change.
Although not separated from religion in many areas, political control in the form of
direct leadership and land tenure practices (boundary marking) can also be important
forces influencing TREM. On the Northwest Coast of North America, leaders of kin
groups and local village chiefs had the power to enforce food collecting regulations for individuals or kin groups, or to exclude groups from certain areas (Turner et al. 2005). Similarly,
in Micronesia and elsewhere in the Pacific, reef and lagoon resources were conserved
through tenures that prevented outsiders from fishing without permission (Johannes 1981:
64). Elite-imposed restrictions on harvests (e.g., the rahui of the Society Islands), or religious prohibitions such as those against entering “sacred groves” (Alcorn 1984) are other
examples of socially or politically sanctioned rules that control harvests.
THE FUTURE OF TREM
Today, as in the past, a variety of social and ecological contexts influence whether
human interactions with their environments are responsible or positive. Past and present
records are replete with examples where the tolls of resource exploitation far outweigh
the positive benefits of management practices. In some cases, restrictions by the ruling
class are responsible for preventing people from applying ecological knowledge to
management, to the detriment of the environment (Crumley 2000; Jones et al. 2008;
Rosen 1995). In other cases today, age-old management systems no longer “work” because
of changes in the environment, population, or technology (E. Anderson and Medina Tzuc
2005; Shackleton 1993), or TREM practices have been forgotten due to modernization
and displacement.
In many societies, however, such ecological knowledge is vitally alive and people are
attempting to put it back into practice (M.K. Anderson 2005; Fowler et al. 2003). Since
TREM systems are based on long-term, local ecological knowledge, they provide insights
on what practices are most effective in given settings, and what environmental conditions
existed prior to extensive transformations in the industrial era. Some have worried that bringing TEK to modern management situations, removed from the cultural system in which it
developed, can fundamentally change the holistic nature of TREM (Nadasdy 1999).
Conversely, Western scientists have sometimes had difficulty with the less tangible, ethical,
or spiritual aspects of TREM. However, despite these potential stumbling blocks, many
researchers are working successfully with Indigenous and local ecological knowledgekeepers to understand past TREM systems, in order to bring aspects of TREM into current
resource management (Ford and Martinez 2000; MacDougall et al. 2004). Clearly, we
have much to learn from the cumulative knowledge on which TREM systems are based,
and it is in all our best interests to incorporate this knowledge into the management of
resources today.
CASE STUDY 17.1
Managing Intertidal Ecosystems on the Northwest Coast
Dana Lepofsky and Douglas Deur
At the time of European contact in the late eighteenth century, Northwest Coast peoples had one of the
highest population densities in North America (Ames and Maschner 1999). These large populations
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of complex hunter-fisher-gatherers actively managed particular resources and habitats to enhance the
abundance and diversity of culturally preferred resources (Deur and Turner 2005a; Turner 2005). Such
practices were embedded within a larger system of knowledge and beliefs about the ecological and
spiritual worlds (Berman 2000; Turner 2005). These practices and knowledge are documented most
clearly in the ethnographic record. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that management practices have a long time depth in this region (Deur and Turner 2005a; Weiser and Lepofsky 2009). The
compiled evidence suggests that much of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century landscape
represented a mosaic of highly managed ecosystems, purposively modified to enhance the production
of valued resources.
In the mid-coast region of the Northwest Coast, home to the Northern Coast Salish and Wakashan
speaking peoples such as the Kwakwaka’wakw (or “Kwakiutl”), the maritime foreshore (estuarine to
the rocky intertidal zones) was a continuum of intensively managed habitats. Beginning in the middle
to upper estuarine zone salt marshes, people maintained family-owned “root gardens” where they
enhanced the productivity of four valued native root foods: Pacific silverweed, springbank clover,
Nootka lupine, and northern riceroot lily. Root food productivity was enhanced through selective harvesting, replanting, transplanting, weeding, mulching, and tilling (Deur 2005). Constructed rock walls
on the downslope side of salt marshes were filled with soil and mulch, thus extending the area that
could be cultivated. Place names and oral traditions refer to these cultivated plots, reflecting the
extent to which this complex management system was integrated into the larger cultural tradition.
Dating the estuarine gardens is difficult, but Deur’s (2005) dating of associated anthropogenic soils
suggests the gardens are pre-contact in age.
Figure 17.3 Aerial photograph of the intertidal resource management feature in Northern Coast Salish
territory taken at an extreme low tide. This feature combines various management elements and illustrates part
of the continuum of TREM on the Northwest Coast. The beach has been cleared of cobbles to create a more
productive clam habitat and walls were created with these cobbles to extend the suitable clam habitat seaward.
On the right side of the photo, cobbles are used to create walls of a small fish trap. This trap would have functioned
by catching fish on an incoming or outgoing tide, when water moves through the area rapidly. At the margin of
the forest, the cobbles have been cleared away in a small path to create a canoe skid. In the forest is a small
archaeological site composed of shellfish and fish collected from these features. A clam shell from the base of this
archaeological site was radiocarbon dated to between AD 1540 to 1820. The width of the cleared beach is
approximately 20 m. Photograph by Georgia Combes, used with permission. (See color insert.)
The Future of Trem
297
Continuing seaward to the upper and mid-intertidal zone, people constructed stone and wooden
fish traps (Mobley and McCallum 2001; Fig. 17.3). Although there are many forms—and they
likely had multiple functions—these features were often designed to capture fish (and their prey)
that swam in at the high tide and then were stranded when the water receded. Some features were
designed to keep fish between tides to be harvested when needed and others, by creating suitable
habitats, likely increased the abundance and diversity of other marine foods (e.g., clams). Herring
and salmon were targeted species of many features, and this is reflected in their design and
location (Caldwell 2008; White 2006). Importantly, in contrast to the current industrial practice
of catching pre-spawn herring for their roe, herring were traditionally caught after spawning, in
part to insure harvest sustainability (Michele Washington, pers. commun.). Fish traps were situated
with precise attention to the tidal cycle and stream flows during peak fish runs. Historically, many
such features were owned and managed by household heads (Boas 1966: 36; Suttles 1987: 20;
White 2006). Most of the mid-coast features are undated, but based on work elsewhere, many
should date to some 2000 years ago (Moss and Erlandson 1998; Moss et al. 1990). This sustainable,
highly productive traditional fishery stands in dramatic contrast to now threatened modern industrial
fisheries of the region.
At the lowest points in the intertidal zone, people maintained highly productive “clam gardens”
(Deur 2000; Williams 2006; Woods and Woods 2005). Located on natural clam beaches, rock walls
were sometimes formed by moving rocks on the beach seaward. In other cases, the beaches were
simply cleared of rocks and no walls were formed (Emily August, pers. commun.; Caldwell et al.,
in press). Clearing the beaches of rocks increased the area for clams. Like the estuarine gardens,
rock abutments on the downslope side of the clam beds served to trap sediment and extend the natural
clam habitat seaward. Similarly to the root gardens, clam productivity (probably due to increased
recruitment of young) seems to have benefited from the constant working of the beach with digging
sticks during harvests, which aerated the clam flats, removed obstructions, and kept the soil matrix
pliable. Clam gardens in Kwakwaka’wakw territory were owned and maintained by family groups
who were tied to specific winter villages (Chief Adam Dick, pers. commun.). These features have
not yet been dated directly, but based on other cultural developments the majority likely date to
within the last 2000–3000 years.
CASE STUDY 17.2
Australian Aborigine Fire Stick Hunting and Farming: The
Creation of a Productive Landscape
Although the cultural and natural landscapes of Australia are diverse, they are united by one basic
element—fire. Australia is a mosaic of grasslands and wet and dry forests composed of fire-dependent
species, which rely on lightning and human-set fires. For Aboriginal hunter-gatherers, fire was the tool
to help hunt game and to increase plant food production. Fire also was, and is, the tool that allows
Aboriginal peoples to fulfill their obligation of managing and caring for the land (Fig 17.4; Head
1994; Pyne 1991). The importance of fire was re-affirmed and rekindled over the millennia through
daily practice, oral traditions, and rituals (Hallam 1975; Pyne 1991).
Pollen and charcoal records allow paleoecologists to track the long-term effects of fire and the role
of humans in this fire-climax land. However, difficulties in distinguishing between natural (lightning)
and cultural ignition of fires in the paleoecological record complicate documenting management practices that use fire (Head 2000; Kershaw et al. 2002). Paleoecological records demonstrate that fire was
important in the ecology of Australian grasslands and forests long before the arrival of Aboriginal
peoples some 50,000 years ago (Kershaw et al. 2002; Pyne 1991). Since settlement, the association
of humans with fires is clear, but the specific role of human-set fires in transforming landscapes is
difficult to tease out (see review in Pyne 1991).
Despite these difficulties, there is little doubt that ancestral Aboriginal Australians extensively
used fire to even out highly seasonal natural burns. Using a fire brand, or “firestick”, Aboriginal peoples
set controlled fires both to hunt and to manage the life cycles of plant foods. “Firestick hunting” (Jones
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Figure 17.4 Australian Aboriginal women, Kiwirrkurra, burning grasslands to hunt goanna lizards, 2002.
Insert: lighting fire (see smoke column in background); the main picture is dinnertime camp the same day in the
burned area. Photographs by Laurie Walsh, used with permission. (See color insert.)
1969) was used to flush game such as kangaroos, to clear ground to track lizards (goanna), and to attract
kangaroos, emu, and other game to new growth and open habitats (Bird et al. 2005; Pyne 1991).
Firestick farming and continual digging enhanced the growth and production of plants, especially
those with underground storage organs such as sedges, cycads, and brackens (Gott 2005; Pyne
1991). These resources were harvested during a highly mobile seasonal round. Frequent, low intensity
fires enhanced plant production by recycling nutrients, reducing competing vegetation, encouraging
post-fire colonizers, and sometimes by synchronizing ripening times (Kohen 2003; Pyne 1991).
Anthropogenic fires were prescribed in space and time depending on fuel availability, precipitation, and the effect on valued resources. In forested regions, fire cycles began at the end of the wet
season and continued throughout the dry season for up to 10 months (Hallam 1975; Pyne 1991).
Areas were burned every one to four years, depending on the ecosystem. In fuel-limited central deserts,
however, fires were much more infrequent. In some regions, fires were prescribed because of the potentially devastating effects of burning on plant resources. Such areas were protected by firebreaks
and prohibitions involving spirits. Wasteful fires were also prohibited, with prohibitions reinforced
through oral traditions about the Dreamtime (Pyne 1991).
Aboriginal peoples’ knowledge of fire ecology co-evolved with Australia’s ecosystems—each
becoming dependent on the other. However, European colonization upset the well established
rhythm between humans and their environment. The temporal and spatial patterning of Indigenous
fires was disrupted and low intensity burns occurred much less frequently or at different seasons.
Fuels accumulated, and destructive crown fires frequently occurred that threatened settlers’ homes
and livelihoods (Pyne 1991). The process continues and is magnified today: extended drought,
likely associated with global warming, has resulted in unprecedented wildfires (The Observer
2009). Increasingly, there is recognition that effective management of Australia’s landscape must
incorporate the long-term ecological knowledge held by Aboriginal peoples (BBC News 2007; Bird
et al. 2005).
The Future of Trem
CASE STUDY 17.3
299
Managing Extreme Environments: The Timbisha Shoshone
of Death Valley, California
The Timbisha Shoshone people live in one of most extreme environments in North America—the
Mojave Desert. Sometimes referred to as Panamint, the Timbisha people were hunter-gatherers
until non-Indian contact in the 1840s. They were seasonally transhumant, living on the floor of
Death Valley in winter and in the surrounding mountains in summer. The twin hallmarks of their
plant subsistence system were honey mesquite pods obtained in the valley and single-leaf pinyon
nuts obtained in the mountains. Both were heavily harvested, stored for off-season use, and carefully
managed. They also collected for food, seeds from many plant species, roots, greens, and berries. Game
animals hunted included desert bighorn, occasional mule deer, hares and rabbits, woodrats, chuckwalla
lizards, several small rodent species, and communal insects. In the 1850s, the Timbisha began
cultivating corn, beans, squash, and devil’s claw, obtained from the Southwestern tribes (e.g.,
Mohave, Tohono O’odham) to supplement their wild harvests. Today, most Timbisha homelands
are within federally managed and restricted lands, including Death Valley National Park, the
Mojave Desert Preserve and several military bases. All of these restrict traditional TREM activities,
but elders still recall former practices (Fowler 1996).
In the past, the Timbisha Shoshone people practiced several aspects of TREM, including
burning, pruning and coppicing, weeding and cleaning, and transplanting. All activities were approached with prayer, and deep respect was shown to all plants and animals harvested and tended.
Taking care of the land and its resources was a deeply spiritual matter, and each individual respected
the spirits of each place and item encountered. The pervasive ethic was stewardship and partnership
among all living things. The Timbisha phrase “we live by them” implied that plants and animals provide for people and people are obligated to provide for them, as would neighbors. Plants and animals
“hear” peoples’ prayers and talking as an acknowledgement of this interaction. They need to “feel” the
presence of people in their everyday activities. Older people continually monitor the health of the land
and its resources as they move about the landscape (Fowler 2000).
Prior to legal restriction, the Timbisha set controlled fires in a variety of ecosystems to encourage
various plants and animals. In Death Valley, this was done to drive hares and rabbits, while also
encouraging seeds such as white-stemmed blazing star. Burning in and around marshes controlled cattail and renewed grasses, and burning of stream banks controlled willows, promoted vigorous straight
stems for basketry, and freed water for animals and people. The Timbisha also fired small patches
of brush in openings in the pinyon forest to encourage tobacco, a favored medicinal and spiritual plant.
The Timbisha people pruned the lower limbs of mesquite and pinyon to open up groves for
ease of harvesting, and for fuel wood. They pinched the growth tips of pinyon limbs to
encourage branching for new cones, and beat the upper branches with long poles to remove dead
cones and further prune for cone production. They cleared accumulated duff beneath mesquite
and pinyon to aid in collecting beans and nuts, at the same time opening the under-storey to sunlight
and moisture and encouraging seed germination and rooting. The people further aided grove regeneration by processing pods in the groves using stone mortars and wooden pestles. They pounded the pods
to obtain the sweet, edible mesocarp, then discarded the hard “beans” or seed in the grove. Pounding
scarified the seed, readying it for germination. People camping and walking throughout the groves
in effect planted the seed.
Women coppiced willow to obtain straight growth the following season for basketry. They
weeded and cleaned around desert prince’s plume (a bush with edible leaves), removing only a few
leaves for greens each spring. They cleaned springs and water-holding potholes in bedrock, and
often “lidded” potholes with stones to discourage evaporation (while still allowing openings for
animals to drink). They sometimes transplanted willows and other plants to different locations, but
generally felt wild things were meant to stay in the environments in which they were created. They
carefully monitored desert bighorn herds, never disturbing the lambing grounds.
The Timbisha have not been allowed to practice their traditional TREM since the 1930s, when
Death Valley (now a U.S. National Park) and other areas came under strict federal control. In 2000,
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the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe was granted land within the Park, with the right to co-manage certain
other Park areas, especially mesquite groves and some pinyon forests. They have begun to reinstate
their TREM on these lands (Fowler et al. 2003), and intend to return to the stewardship that has
always been a part of their spirit if not their practice.
Figure 17.5 Stages of the “milpa cycle”: from the newly burned plot to maize canopy with squash and beans in
four months, succeeding into a diverse open fruit and hardwood orchard in 5 –7 years. Between 14 and 18 years
later, this orchard culminates in a forest garden of useful trees and palms, which matures 20– 30 years after the initial
burn. Burned field photograph courtesy of BRASS/El Pilar Project; other photographs by Macduff Everton, used
with permission). (See color insert.)
References
CASE STUDY 17.4
301
Managing the Forest: The Milpa Cycle of the Maya of the
Yucatan Peninsula
The Maya are diverse peoples with long and complex histories. They are the inheritors of one of the
most fascinating New World civilizations (Schele and Freidel 1990). Ancestral Maya worked out complex relationships with their tropical forest homelands, areas often characterized by poor soil and a
fragile resource balance (Ford and Nigh 2009). Basically swidden farmers, both ancient and contemporary Maya practice forest management based on periodic burning and field and crop rotation. This
system also incorporates animals, including game such as deer and peccary, and birds, bats, and insects
that frequent the fields and recovering plots no longer in agricultural production. Among their most
ecologically complex systems is their agroforestry, managed in conjunction with milpa fields and gardens. “Milpas are complex polycultural plots that are visually dominated by maize, but flourish with
many other crops . . . including a bewildering variety of ‘weeds’ that serve as greens, herbs, medicine,
pesticides and herbicides, as well as allelopathic plants . . .” (Ford and Emery 2008: 149; Fig. 17.5).
The “high performance” milpa (Wilken 1987) mimics the surrounding forest in species composition
and structure, and is the major component of the Maya subsistence system.
Research on the ethnoecology and TREM of Maya milpa systems illustrates the complexity of
these systems. For example, Nigh (2008) has shown that Lacandon knowledge of secondary forest
regeneration after milpa cultivation and fallow closely matches, but is more detailed, than that of
Western-trained forest ecologists. In addition, through a system of selective encouragement of specific
new growth, and weeding and low intensity burning of weeds, the Maya are able to return a plot to
useful forest, ready for a new milpa, in half the time predicted by forest ecologists (12– 15 years as
opposed to 25þ years). Once the old milpa is burned, the Maya purposefully encourage the growth
of keystone species such as the balsa tree, with its profuse leaf litter. These trees keep out invasive
species such as bracken fern and grasses that can overrun the field. Other fast-growing pioneers
such as ramon and hog plum soon provide shade for other desired shade-tolerant plants. The
Lacandon Maya also encourage species that will attract seed dispersers such as bats and birds as
well as weeding recently fallowed areas, removing plants that will not contribute to new forest regeneration. Throughout the period of regeneration and the active life of the milpa, the Maya burn accumulated litter and incorporate it into the soil to create carbon (Nigh 2008: 239). These highly fertile soils
are the mainstay of tropical forest agriculture in the Yucatan and elsewhere in tropical regions.
Knowledge of forest succession and the application of these TREM activities allows soil fertility in
cultivated areas to be maintained over the millennia.
Additional features of